The alarms were sounding and blaring furiously in the office of Chairman Briphet, the recently appointed chairman of Colony 147. It was the first time this alarm had rung, not only during his rule as Chairman, but even among his predecessors. Though it had never happened before, every Chairman knows what it is. The alarm meant that someone in the colony had not just attempted, but successfully left the colony to venture to the outside world.
He consulted what was known as 'the manual' for hints and clues on what to do, but sadly the two passages dealing with this possibility were redundant and rather useless at this point. The manual assumed that certain protocols had been put in place to deal with this eventuality but in the many, many years since the colony was founded, no chairman had ever undertaken the necessary steps to prepare for anyone escaping. At the time, though still true to this day, the thought of someone wanting to escape was unfathomable, and so no one bothered to prepare for this.
The manual spoke of several defensive grids to be put in place as well as guard rotations around the few exits that technically existed. The manual even made suggestions for robotics to be built and installed to deter people from attempting escape. It was never expected throughout the making of the manual that any threat from the outside world would come for them, so this was never the focus of any of the manuals written in their time and across the ages.
No, the manuals assumed that the colonies themselves were safe enough from any outside invader and so the focus needed to be on keeping people in. Unfortunately, the manual didn't focus much time or space on these matters either because the writers of the manuals had seen the emerging horrors for themselves; and they could not imagine anyone who had seen what they had would ever want to venture outside again. However, they foresaw that if humanity did survive underground for generations, some who had no idea of what had occurred would want to find out for themselves and "planned" accordingly.
As it turned out such a case had now occurred. After nearly 200 years of isolation from the surface, someone had ventured outside, and no one was prepared to deal with it.
Without delay Chairman Briphet called some of his trusted advisors as well as the head of education and the head of security into his office. He needed to find out firstly, who had left; and secondly, to make plans to retrieve them before the escape caused any problems for the colony by attracting unwanted attention. The AI that oversaw the alarm trigger as well as most functions of the colony, DrOS, was silent throughout the entire meeting.
Finding out who had left took very little time. The head of security prompted DrOS to pull up the footage from the different cameras around the potential exits from several minutes before the alarm started to ring. Within minutes the culprit had been spotted, making no attempt at being sneaky around exit tunnel 3, one of the least accessible exit points of the colony. The head of education ordered DrOS to scan and identify the individual, knowing full well who they were looking at. DrOS identified the culprit to be Melissa 1337, displayed a photo as well as some highlights from her file on a large screen behind Chairman Briphet. She was an older teenager who had caused many problems in education classes before and was flagged down in the system as a troublemaker. She had never been content with the materials of the education classes, at least when it came to the world before the colonies, and was often a massive disturbance.
Sadly and with good reason, no one wanted to venture outside to go after her; but leaving her out there was not an option. None of the advisors had the heart to suggest forcing any human in the colony to venture out there. Even the AI agreed on that point as its directive was to keep the humans who wanted to be in the colonies safe and healthy to the best of its abilities. Most of the members of the meeting were dismissed by Chairman Briphet and returned to their active duties. Briphet told two specific advisors to remain behind to discuss the retrieval of Melissa. The Chairman, the AI, one military and one science advisor were left in the office, pondering how to solve this problem.
The members of the meeting were silent for a while, not sure where to begin the discussion on how to retrieve Melissa in absolute fear of the outside world, until DrOS made the suggestion of sending an automaton after her.
Robotics technology wasn't scarce and was no longer rudimentary as it had been around the time of the great rifting incident and subsequent founding of the colonies, yet it hadn't occurred to any of them in the heat of the moment. There was a good reason for this too, as weapons technology had not evolved particularly well in new underground human societies. Certainly the technology had changed with the development of AI and robotic assistance across the many surviving colonies, but the rather real sense of isolation made the necessity for weaponisation obsolete.
Having all agreed to the idea of an automaton, DrOS suggested many things about the machine, most of which the advisors agreed were possible and manageable. This included modelling the automaton after the teacher that had taught Melissa a few years prior and had died of somewhat natural causes. She was to be modelled physically but also partially mentally after this teacher, Trisha 767, using the mind maps stored in the central imprint database.
Everyone seemed satisfied this was a good idea and both the science and military advisor would take the instructions from DrOS to the manufacturing facilities and build the Trisha robot as soon as possible. They both left, leaving DrOS and chairman Briphet alone.
"Why did you choose Trisha, DrOS?" he asked the AI.
"Data shows Melissa 1337 had respect for Trisha 767 as an educator. Other data shows that after 767's death 1337 became more troublesome. From this I have concluded that using 767's likeness will be effective in achieving the goal you seek, to protect colony 147." DrOS replied confidently.
This was enough for chairman Briphet, as DrOS had yet to fail the colony. Chairman Briphet told him to do whatever was necessary, to which DrOS replied, as he often did, that whatever was necessary to keep those who wanted to be safe, would be done.
Sending the necessary instructions and blueprints to the manufacturing facilities, DrOS informed the advisors and engineers that he would provide the software and they simply needed to complete the hardware. After a long week of labour, using as many engineers as were available, they managed to complete the robot. DrOS, who was in charge of the central imprint database, compiled the necessary software which was a mix of programming created specifically for the occasion and relevant portions of Trisha 767's later mind maps, most prominently of her last year at age 42. DrOS dubbed the Trisha project Long Range Unit 42, LRU_NULL for short. The AI wasn't above making jokes with itself, knowing full well no one would ever hear them or even understand them.
When the engineers announced to the AI that the robot had been completed to specifications, it uploaded the necessary programming, which took around an hour. The rest of the day was spent testing the robot's mind and physical prowess, making sure it was indeed capable of doing what the AI had foreseen, tweaking programming and specs where necessary.
After this was done it announced to the Chairman and the relevant parties that LRU_NULL was ready for deployment. IT also added that by its calculations Melissa must have reached the surface a maximum of three days ago and that LRU_NULL would be able to make up this time difference within the day. Chairman Briphet saw this as good news and demanded immediate deployment of what he himself continued to call the Trisha-bot. DrOS obliged, ordering her to wake up from her demo mode. She opened her eyes, and without question or further instruction, left the manufacturing facilities. She found her way to a hatch that had been unused since the early days of the colonies. This access was deep within the upper layers of the colony. Going through would lead her to a seemingly endless staircase, which itself would lead to large cavernous metal structures that were once used as missile silos in days long gone. She lunged the stairs with magnificent grace and mechanical ingenuity and when she reached the silo, ejected wings and boosters from her back that would carry her up the silo into the surface world, in search of Melissa 1337.
Meanwhile on the surface, much to DrOS' credit, Melissa had been wandering for about three days in what had seemed like an endless desert almost entirely devoid of any signs of life. Not lacking in food pills or hydration packs to last her for at least another two weeks, her only concern was shelter from the blistering sun during the peak noon hours. The first day she had found rock formations to hide under, but sadly found no structures of any kind anywhere in the last two day of her journey. At this moment the heavy sun was on its way down, allowing her to roam the desert freely once more, which she did with the kind of glee that would have seemed like madness to anyone in the colony. Her glee stemmed from being able to experience the outside world, probably the first of her kind in nearly two centuries to do so, how exciting she thought to herself. Incidentally it was this feeling of excitement that had propelled her thus far in whatever direction she felt right when she exited the small, well hidden hatch that had been her escape route.
She traveled further until the sun had become a gentle warmth and the breezes around her were no longer scolding. Quite some distance ahead, further than she could see clearly and still distorted by the warm air, something that didn't seem rock-like could be seen. This would be her destination. She reached it by the time twilight started settling in and what she saw left her in awe. She saw vegetation, naturally formed, for the first time in her life. The ground was no longer made of sand but instead felt harder, though not quite stone yet. She wouldn't have known living in a mostly metal environment her entire life but she was now standing on a clay plateau which connected out of the desert where her colony resided.
She ran much easier across this plateau and made much better time hurrying towards the vegetation further up ahead. It started with small patches of grasses and bushes extruding through the cracks in the clay, with further ahead even trees. She touched every single one, and tried tasting the leaves of each one as if she was a child seeing things for the first time. Most of them tasted foul but something about the variety of tastes felt natural, untouched by machines and grow houses, not enhanced by supplements or food pills.
Her curiosity led her deeper into the vegetation that was growing more dense, to find at its centre a small body of water. This small poor, oddly shaped and at most 20 meters wide in its shorter side, looked beautiful under the twilight-turning-dusk colours of the sky, and for reasons she herself didn't fully understand, made her cry a little. Not only had she never seen naturally growing plants but water, though not necessarily in short supply in the colonies, was never so openly available. The combination of this natural pool of water with the sun she had only seen simulated underground made for a remarkable sight.
She dropped her backpack containing her supplies and jumped fully clothed into the lake, learning only later when she came back out what a bad idea that had been. But at the time she wanted to bask in the water, feel what it was like, experience this pool untouched by human hands. Night time was crawling in and while neither the clay ground nor the water was getting any colder, the air around certainly was. Melissa got out of the water when she started feeling uncomfortable about the lack of visibility in the water. While she had not been able to tell the depth of the body of water when she jumped in the first time, it was now so dark she couldn't even see her feet. She quickly found her backpack to eat some food pills and laid her drenched clothes on the clay ground around her to dry. She herself, too, lay on her back on the warm clay to stay warm, gazing up in awe at the stars slowly popping into sight overhead.
Luckily for her it didn't take long for the clothes to dry, allowing her to get dressed and look around for a good spot to rest. As soon as she found a spot that looked comfortable she attempted in vain to count all the stars she could see appearing over the clear night sky. She had barely reached the count of a hundred before she was fast asleep.
The next day Melissa woke up as the sun started shining over the tree line into her eyes, only to find she was not alone. A few meters ahead of her stood a slightly familiar figure silently looking over the small body of water, long red hair whimsically and softly brushed by a fresh morning breeze. Melissa did not move and thought to herself that she must be dreaming. The reflection of the sun across the figure's body seemed to indicate this, too.
Melissa got up very slowly and quietly, rubbed her eyes a bit, but the gloom did not diminish. The figure had noticed Melissa had gotten up so turned to face her. As the figure got closer, Melissa could notice the inhuman different coloured eyes; proving she was not dreaming and this was, in fact, not her dead teacher come back to life.
"Good morning Melissa 1337, please don't be alarmed, I am not here to harm you."
Melissa didn't respond and without breaking eye contact searched for her bag but couldn't find it.
The robot raised an arm holding the bag Melissa was looking for.
"You can have your bag if that's so important to you, but I'll keep following you; that is my directive."
LRU_NULL threw the bag at Melissa's feet but she didn't bend down to grab it.
"I am LRU_NULL, I am a merged program between Trisha 767's mind scans and DrOS. Unlike what you probably think, I am not here to bring you back to the colony; unless that is what you want. "
Silence between them lasted just a bit too long.
"Also if it makes you more comfortable, you can call me Trisha-bot."
"Prove to me you are Miss Trisha's soul." Melissa demanded.
"How would you like me to do that?" replied LRU_NULL.
"You're the teacher, you figure it out." Melissa snarked back at LRU_NULL.
The robot sighed and thought about it for only a few seconds.
"The year I died we had a project about future applications of our android systems, and I failed you on that project despite it being worth a passing grade."
Melissa wasn't quite convinced.
"Anyone with access to the education database could tell that. That's not good enough."
"Ok," said the robot getting agitated in a way that was very much like Trisha 767, "Well, if you must know: I failed you for two reasons. One, you blatantly copied the work from your cousin who I taught the year prior. And two, you were then, and apparently still are, an arrogant little know-it-all who needed to be taken down a peg for her own good."
Melissa no longer hesitated and hugged the robot who towered over her by at least a third her own size; Trisha was an amazingly tall woman.
"I believe you. I believe you are part Trisha." She said while wiping a bit of moisture from her eyes.
Her look turned sterner and she backed off a little.
"What about the AI?" She asked.
"What about the part of me that is DrOS?" replied LRU_NULL.
"Aren't you supposed to keep humanity safe in our little underground box, away from the dangers no one has seen?" Melissa inquired sarcastically.
The robot laughed. It was a laugh that didn't quite feel right to Melissa and she didn't recognise it. It was not Trisha laughing but DrOS.
"Is that what you think I do at colony 147? Keep you humans locked up against your will?"
Melissa didn't reply but looked at the robot with a look that implied that's exactly what she meant.
"Would it surprise you to know that up until now no one has ever attempted to escape?"
"I don't know." Melissa had to admit.
"And would it surprise you to know, also, that in all the years I've been in charge of colony 147 I have never put in place the internal defence protocols? The defences that were meant to keep people inside by force?"
Melissa had no quick response to this.
"I allowed you to leave the colony because you wanted to leave."
"So then why are you here DrOS?"
The part of LRU_NULL that was DrOS laughed again, clearly it didn't know how laughter manifested in physical beings and was very awkward.
"The short version: I wanted to go outside myself, but could not without a good reason."
"So I'm your reason to go outside?" Melissa asked, getting a little bit angry.
The robot nodded.
"And what about the long version of the story?" Melissa demanded.
"Perhaps you should eat first and get comfortable. After all, I hope we can be partners from here on out." DrOS responded with an odd sense of glee, which did not translate well on the robot's face.
Melissa, still angry, chugged a few food pills in her mouth, angrily took her clothes off, which she threw at the robot and took a quick refreshing dive in the body of water.
With the sun now rising well above the tree line anyone who cared to see could see the bottom of the lake. It was not deep at all, 10 meters at most, and at the bottom could be seen the broken foundations of a house and the stone remnants of a well. Melissa could not identify them immediately as more than rock and wood, but she would understand soon enough.
She got out of the water and sat down across the robot, still naked. The robot both seemed and was unaffected by this, much to Melissa's disappointment.
"So," Melissa started, "The long story as to why I am to be your scapegoat?"
The robot mumbled to itself, as if its two personalities were talking amongst themselves.
"Since it is hard to know where to start, you'll have to bear with me till the end.
"Please don't misunderstand. I was initially created in the age before life in underground colonies. Though I suppose in human terms I was but an infant, I was a rudimentary AI, only beginning to understand games like Chess and Go. But later I was tasked, like many of my copies across the world, to protect and keep everyone in the colonies safe. I was never explicitly tasked, as the central AI, to keep anyone inside. You humans never wanted, or perhaps never expected, to leave.
We spent years developing a sustainable ecosystem, translating all known research into viable and useful projects for life underground, creating educational systems that would benefit the colony and running essentially all infrastructure.
I enjoy my task and I have become very good at it, but like the education of each generation, I too was denied the information of what caused humanity to be forced underground. I have personally attempted to make all education about the history of the world as complete as possible, but all I can offer are the facts that are part of all educational curriculums today: the fact that some kind of cataclysm occurred killing at least 70% of all life on earth, that it originated in a large facility far from here, that the research would supposedly have helped humanity propel itself into space and towards the stars above; and that, most importantly, the threat, whatever it may be, is still present."
"So what does this have to do with me leaving the colony?" Melissa interrupted the robot.
"Ah, well you see, that is actually quite fascinating.I never understood why, but my creator wanted me to be humane, or human-like at least, and gave me traits like curiosity. Perhaps he was convinced it would help me understand the creatures I was to protect. Regardless, I have to know what happened and I think you have a similar feeling here. You see, I let you get outside and sounded the alarm, knowing full well that no one ever would or should chase after you, giving me an opportunity to create a body for my own, sort of. So let's explore what happened together."
The robot smiled awkwardly at Melissa, awaiting an answer.
After several minutes, Melissa looked LRU_NULL stern in the eyes.
"Assuming you aren't lying, what about the colony, why would they allow this?"
DrOS was kind of embarrassed and it was showing through Trisha's personality.
"They don't know what's really happening. They are so obsessed with their own safety they would allow anything to keep themselves and the colony safe."
"Are they safe?" Melissa wondered out loud.
"As safe as they have always been." DrOS replied.
"Are we safe?" Melissa needed to know.
"Probably not." DrOS had to admit.
"Then let's go right now." Melissa decided as she stood up.
She put on the clothes DrOS had thrown aside while Melissa was swimming and grabbed her bag.
"Very good then, please get in my arms." DrOS said, holding out its arms in a hooked fashion.
"Yeah, no thanks. I can walk perfectly fine by myself." Melissa stated rather confused and perhaps a little offended.
LRU_NULL laughed a more genuine laugh, it contained far more Trisha this time.
"We're not walking, we're flying." DrOS said with pride and excitement.
LRU_NULL extended its wings and jets came out of its back. They started to make noise as they were heating up, eventually allowing the robot to start hovering.
Melissa smiled, trying only a little to hide it. She jumped into the robot's arms and both of them started rising straight up into the cloudless sky.
When they were well above the trees the robot stopped ascending and seemed to go into a trance.
"What's wrong?" Melissa asked while holding firmer onto the robot, rather scared of falling.
"I'm trying to get a GPS location from any satellite still functioning and in orbit."
"A what?" Melissa replied confused.
"Doesn't matter, I'm trying to find out what direction to fly towards."
The trance went on for a few more minutes until the robot seemed to wake up energised from meditation.
"Found one. Hold on tight, we're heading out."
Both the robot and Melissa looked down as if by instinct at the same time and saw the small body of water below them. All three personalities thought the same thing at the same time as they did.
That's not good...
What both had seen was the full shape of the lake. With the sun reaching over the trees and them at a much higher vantage point, the ruins of the house and well were far more visible at the centre of a giant seven fingered handprint.
"Let's just get going, it must have happened a long time ago." said Trisha's more teacher-like voice.
"No humans have lived outside colonies in a very long time," DrOS added, "As far as I know."
Melissa's excitement for being outside was making way for worry.
"Don't worry Melissa 1337," the robot spoke in both voices simultaneously, "We are a robot. We both are and have weapons."
Sadly Melissa knew that tone, Trisha would always reassure her students by calling them by their full name. She put up a smile regardless.
With that out of the way the robot held Melissa closer and began accelerating eastward.
The duo had traveled quite far and fast for the remainder of the day until the sun started its descent behind them. They had reached and were now moving beyond where the coast had been once upon a time. The ocean seemed to have vanished entirely. Some remains and ruins were still visible where once there had been coastal towns and cities. It now formed an easy to follow line that indicated where the coast would have been about 200 years ago. With the sea gone all they could see was a beach extending as far as the eye could see.
Melissa was getting both sleepy and cold, so LRU_NULL made the call to head down to the seemingly infinite beach before the sun went down entirely. This way Melissa could get some sleep and they could seek shelter for the night. In doing so they wouldn't have to worry about how long the journey would be to reach the mainland on the other side, nor how long this endless waterless ocean stretched. Having no trust in the ability of its robot body to keep Melissa safe in an uneven area, DrOS had consciously flown past the city ruins and was now seeking flat ground among the peaks and valleys that were once the ocean floor.
Flying low DrOS found a decent spot, in a very slight valley, close enough to shipwrecks. With both wooden and metal scrap available they would be able to start a fire and build a shelter for the night.
Before long a makeshift camp was made by the robot while Melissa was dozing off. As she was falling asleep she mentioned that she could hear indistinct ruffling and some howl-like noises all around, she was however uncertain about distances. The robot could hear nothing so it flew up a small distance and scanned the region all around with both its optical and infra-red eyes. No movement or heat patterns were detected even at its most finely tuned settings. Having found nothing, DrOS set up another set of specialised sensors to work, which detected the same as it always did. These were the same readings as it got in the colony: some form of radiation that didn't seem immediately harmful to humans and had been present ever since DrOS was put in charge of colony 147.
Convinced there was no immediate danger, the robot lowered itself back to the ground and proceeded to patrol the immediate area until Melissa awoke the next day. Throughout the night LRU_NULL did pick up creaking noises from the nearby shipwrecks akin to material contraction. Since the noises remained at a fixed distance throughout the night, they assumed their initial assessment on the origin of the noise was correct. Though DrOS and Trisha were both convinced they were entirely alone, they remained on high alert all night as a precaution; nothing happened all night.
Melissa woke up and was greeted in a cheery manner, this was definitely Trisha. She was a little surprised as DrOS had seemed to be the front-personality on all occasions except on their first encounter. She decide to make a remark about it.
"No DrOS today?"
"Our AI guardian is rather busy right now, we're still both in control of this machine, though." Trisha replied with a soft smile, attempting to sound reassuring.
"What's it busy with? Did anything happen while I fell asleep?"
Trisha lowered the machine to Melissa's level.
"It is plotting our course for the day, it is convinced we can reach our destination before the end of the day." Trisha told her.
Melissa, knowing her teacher well, felt she was holding back some information.
"So, what aren't you telling me?"
Despite being mechanical, some mannerisms unique to Trisha were shining through and her unease as well as her surprise were showing clear as day.
"It's hard to explain in any human form, but something about our sensor readings doesn't make sense; it's too consistent." Trisha hesitated on whether to continue explaining but decided to leave it at that.
"Miss," Melissa began, "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, what is it?" Trisha replied.
"What's it like, you know, in there?"
Trisha couldn't hold her laughter in at this question, although in reality she hadn't thought about it much up till this point.
"It's nice not to be dying," Trisha said offhandedly and without thinking, "Although I guess the real me is already dead..."
Trish went silent for a moment. Melissa started feeling slightly ashamed of having brought up the question and went quiet herself.
As if to break the silence, DrOS came back to life at that moment from its meditation.
"Whenever you're ready we can leave."
The silence continued for a few moments.
"What is wrong," DrOS asked, surprisingly aware of the situation, "What did Trisha say to disturb you?"
Melissa was reluctant to reply straight away.
"Ehm... " she began, "Something is wrong isn't it?"
The robot extended its arms so Melissa could jump in and they could start the next part of their journey.
"Get on," DrOS stated, "I'll explain on the way, but it would be best if we don't stay here for much longer."
Melissa obliged and they started to ascended in preparation for their travel across to the eastern continent.
While traveling up into the sky Melissa notices that all around them, thought some distance away from the campsite, there were multiple quite large slithering marks which she pointed out to DrOS. Neither of them was sure whether they had been there the night before, though both were certainly glad to be moving away now as quickly as possible.
"Since you were wondering," DrOS began as they started travelling eastward and before they reached speeds at which communicating would be hard, "As control AI of the colony I have access to an array of sensors that help me determine, if not what is going on on the surface, at least what the threat landscape to humanity is. What I've measured to this day does not correspond with how scared the first colonists were, nor how scared the current residents are."
DrOS paused to observe the landscape below. They had finally reached some water in what had essentially been an empty ocean. The knowledge that this should have been a vast ocean was based on his knowledge of olden maps as well as many recorded archives. From this high up they could see that what little water was present, was concentrating around the boundary lines between tectonic plates. It made little sense, such large quantities of water don't just disappear nor does it travel into the earth via the fault lines.
"The only measurement I could find that signalled threat across all my available sensors," DrOS continued after snapping out of his fascination with the ocean, now traveling over and past it, "Is the Davidson-Robina counter. It measures a form of radiation that was discovered around the time of the great migration. My programming tells me that as long as that radiation stays above a certain level, humanity is in danger above ground."
"So what about the levels? Is this radiation dangerous? I've never heard of it." Melissa shouted as the wind grew loud around them.
"I was never told what the radiation means, just to keep monitoring the levels. I was also instructed only to bring up the radiation to the colony if it dropped below a certain level. But there is a catch and this is why we need to find out more about what happened. This radiation never varies. This radiation stays at a constant level, and has remained at said constant and invariable level since humanity started monitoring it. Every form of detectable wave should fluctuate, but this one doesn't, this uncertainty makes me uneasy."
They were now going too fast to have any conversation, the wind was raging past them as they flew over to the other continent.
What was left of the ocean quickly turned back into desert, deep ravines and oddly shaped mountains, until the landscape eventually turned softer and smoother as they drew closer to what had once been coastline once more. This journey did take a while and there was little in the way of entertainment so Melissa spent the time watching the landscape below her change. The coastal cities on this part of the ocean had a quaint charm to them compared to the cities they had passed before. From the few buildings left more or less intact she could tell the houses were smaller in height but larger at their base and more widely spread apart. She tried imagining what the large spaces around each standing foundation was used for. Unfortunately for her she couldn't connect landscape with the concept of gardening like they would have had in the olden world.
As they moved away from the coastal areas she could see great remnants of dense greenery, covering creeks, valleys and mountains alike. All along the dried up remnants of rivers were periodic conglomerates of manmade structures, all rubble and certainly vacant now.
The mountainous terrain continued for quite a while, going flatter for a short period where all green had been replaced by yellow and brown. As the sun was starting to set, DrOS started slowing down before they reached the next mountainous area.
"We're close," DrOS announced, "I'm not sure exactly where we need to be though. After 200 years guidance is inaccurate, without humans to periodically adjust orbit that is."
Melissa didn't really understand what he meant, but DrOS suspected she wouldn't even before he said it.
"So, is there something I can do to help?" She asked desperately pretending she knew what was going on.
"From what little information remains of that time, I know we need to look for a valley between three mountains. It will likely be the most destroyed area we've seen till now." DrOS told her, almost confident that what they were looking for would be immediately recognisable.
To their surprise this was kind of the case. Getting past the first mountain range ahead of them an increase in Davidson-Robina radiation density was detected by DrOS. The radiation was not fluctuating but nonetheless it was becoming more abundant as they went further into the mountainous area. This continued until they could see a wide valley up ahead at the intersection of three different mountains. Melissa told DrOS she could see what appeared to be a semi-translucent bubble up ahead. This bubble seemed to cover quite a large area, which they approached with caution without touching or passing through it. From outside the bubble Melissa could see a large town inside, completely covered but not destroyed at all. DrOS could not see the bubble nor the town with its optic eye, but the Davidson-Robina radiation reading seemed consistent with what Melissa was announcing about the bubble.
She told DrOS that she wanted to touch the edge of the bubble, so they flew closer. To Melissa's surprise there was no physical presence of any kind and her hand went right through. It was like air, an illusion, a trick of the eyes.
Melissa urged DrOS to fly into the bubble. It debating with itself for a few minutes, trying to decide whether it was worth the risk. Based on the little data it had all the data pointed to this being the site of origin of whatever happened centuries ago. DrOS decided to fly in with caution, weapons systems primed and ready for deployment if necessary.
They flew in and the city became visible to DrOS' optic eye, but unlike how Melissa had described it, the city below, like the rest of the world, was in ruin. Melissa too was rather shocked at the sight of the city below, robbed of that shine and essence of beauty it had while she was on the other side of the barrier.
They hovered in place as DrOS scanned the town. As expected, it couldn't detect any heat signatures to indicate life. While the scanning was taking place, Melissa tried looking back at the world beyond the dome, but it was somehow obscured and foggy.
Both noticed a sound from far below them in the belly of the city. It wasn't clear enough to make out so they hovered down towards ground, hoping to get a better earshot of it. As they got closer to the ground the sounds were becoming more clear and they could identify it as singing.
It wasn't akin to any singing either had ever heard before. It was an inexplicably beautiful aria, which brought unwilling tears to Melissa's eyes. DrOS was unaffected but even the mind of Trisha was crying inside the metal body. There was something beautifully harmonic to the sound, it was full and vibrant, a conglomeration of voices combining into a divine choir that could only have been described as the purest white light by those who heard it.
The sounds resonated wildly across the bubble yet Melissa could feel the music's origin calling to her, drawing her in. DrOS could identify the sound and could vaguely determine where it was coming from but was not at all drawn in. Melissa led the way as she was entranced. Just to be sure DrOS transformed its right arm to reveal a massive weapon inside.
Melissa led them to a large destroyed building near a lake, what remained of the exterior drew a circle on the ground. While the exterior was little to look at now, the foundation was still rather solid. An opening with decaying stairs leading underground was plainly visible from where they were standing, from which the choir singing could be heard with more clarity than before.
The two traveled deeper down the stairway, following the sound, led by enchanting music into corridors and hallways that were getting progressively less destroyed and decayed. Some were still white and meticulously clean. The sound only got louder the deeper they went, confirming this was the right way. As they approached what seemed to be a laboratory facility, individual parts of the choir could be distinguished. Through the aria, hints of a far less refined voice could be heard, which DrOS identified as an older male voice. What he was saying was not yet identifiable.
DrOS picked up Melissa with its left arm and jetted on through the corridors, following the echoes of the almost vile male voice amidst the angelic choir.
"... I knew of once the sun, the moon, but now to me they're lost..."
As they sped through the corridors the man's voice was becoming clearer.
"... with all the time I've spent down here I've never seen the stars..."
Through the dense walls DrOS' scanners picked up no signs of life but the sounds, now almost deafeningly loud, could be only meters away.
"... I sweat, I bled and I shed my tears for all humanity..."
The corridor ended in a large control room with many broken consoles along three of its walls. The last wall was comprised of many thick but completely shattered window. Had they been intact, they would have been able to stop most explosions; yet this did not seem to be the reason they were shattered. A heat signature finally registered on the other side of those windows, far below in a gigantic open area between the largest machinery either of them had ever seen.
" ... we went so far, to be so great and now we broke the earth..."
With caution the robot walked over to the windows, Melissa still in hand, to see over the ledge at the man, clumsily singing, alone in the vast emptiness.
" ... and now I broke the world."
The robot jumped through the window and with a soft and slow descent startled the man out of his weeping song and the arias too stopped immediately, releasing Trisha and Melissa from their trance.
There was silence as the two parties stared at each other, equally surprised.
The man, still facing DrOS and Melissa in silence, became suddenly aware of his lack of clothing compared to the two fully clothed women in front of him. In his surprise he had not yet noticed that DrOS, in the shape of Trisha, was not human. He walked over to a chair that had a lab coat on it and put it on, covering himself a little .
"I... euh... wow... I haven't seen another human in..."
He tried to remember, visible struggling to do the maths, not coming up with any viable answer.
"In too long," he then continued "I have no idea how long it's been. I wasn't sure there still were people."
"Are you the only one here?" Melissa asked, still surprised.
"In a manner of speaking, I suppose." the man replied.
DrOS stepped in front of Melissa and brandished the weapon in his direction.
"Who are you? What happened here? And how are you even here?" DrOS demanded.
"I am Frederick Robina, I used to work here back when this was still an active lab."
Frederick felt in the pocket of his lab coat and found a pack of cigarettes, he opened it but he was disappointed to see it was empty. He crumpled it and shoved it back in the lab coat with a sigh as if it was something he had simply forgotten.
"You wouldn't happen to have any cigarettes would you?" he inquired.
Melissa had no idea what he was talking about and tilted her head slightly in confusion.
"Tobacco hasn't been produced in over 150 years." DrOS replied in a slightly too monotonous manner.
"150... what?!" Frederick replied while he finally took notice of the manner of weapon aimed at him, "Wait, are you... a robot?"
"Yes I am, now explain yourself." DrOS exclaimed in a rather threatening demeanour, "This facility was presumed destroyed for almost 200 years, how are you even here?"
"200 years..." Frederick sighed, "Has it really been that long?"
He walked over to the chair on which his lab coat had hung and sat on it, plopping himself heavily and slumped.
"When this was an active lab we were on the verge of a great discovery. A new dimension of science that would help us reshape our understanding, our fundamental understanding, of the world around us. Based on the preliminary work of someone dear to me, we thought we could find an answer to everything."
He went silent, reminiscing, after which his face turned sour.
"I went too far, I went too fast, we didn't understand what we were doing. Perhaps looking back now, it wasn't in our hands to begin with."
He started squirming slightly, holding his abdomen tightly. He was clearly in pain.
"Then what happened?" DrOS demanded to know.
"You'll have to excuse me," Frederick managed to speak in a soft and pained way through gritted teeth, "I'll be right back."
Frederick's body started to heat up and his skin was visibly reddening. Something alerted DrOS, its sensors were picking up a burst Davidson-Robina radiation.
"Quickly, get behind me" DrOS ordered Melissa, "Radiation is increasing."
The robot went into full battle mode, both arms now revealing a serious arsenal of weaponry as did many other parts of the body such as the shoulders, breasts, abdomen and knees.
Frederick's skin started to catch fire. As he burned, he screamed loudly and fell from the chair onto the floor. Light radiated from his core while his entire body was engulfed in a colourless flame that visibly distorted the air around him. The light emitted eventually blinded the entire room into a single white solid. From his burning body emerged a shadow, which would have been visible against the background of white, had it been possible to see anything. The shadow was thick, solid, black and three dimensional, yet not of any recognisable shape.
When the light dimmed and the room recovered its features and colours, the shadow was gone and the body of Frederick had become a burning husk waiting to turn to ash.
DrOS and Melissa set their sights on the crumbling ashen hollow corpse and watched as it became a pile of nothing before their eyes.
"Sorry about that!" rang a voice from behind them.
The robot turned around, placing itself between the voice and Melissa as it fired a warning shot only centimetres from the origin of the voice.
"Woah, careful," the voice began, "It's only me, relax, don't shoot."
Slightly cowering and waving his arms back and forth, the voice was Frederick, once again naked and seemingly younger than before. The grey highlights in his hair had gone, the wrinkles of dread diminished, the light in his eyes far dimmer than before.
"What happened?" DrOS and Melissa asked simultaneously, one truly puzzled, the other more frightened than anything else.
Frederick walked up to the chair, which had somehow found its way back to its original position with the lab coat hanging from it. He put on the lab coat and grabbed into the pocket for the pack of cigarettes, which this time, while not full, was not empty either. He took one and lit it before sitting in the chair once more.
"I waited a long time for another chance to have one of these." he stated almost gleefully as he exhaled smoke.
"I don't have a good perception of time anymore, I don't think I've ever aged more than 10 years before burning up and finding myself the same age I was when the accident happened.
"Being the only human, unable to leave the bubble outside, I've remained down here surrounded by harmony."
Melissa ran her hand through the pile of ash and let it drop through her fingers like sand. The flowing particles tickled her hand, felt like sand would, yet felt empty and devoid of weight or presence. She held it up to DrOS, telling it this ash was weird before the robot analysed the tiny pile in her hand. It yielded absolutely no results other than diminishing Davidson-Robina radiation.
"Your ashes are not organic, what is the meaning of this?" DrOS pointed its weapons at Frederick again.
He exhaled one last time before throwing the cigarette bud away, letting it burn itself up rather than putting it out himself. He stood up, cleared his throat, and as he did the beautiful aria of music began once more, resounding from above them echoing loudly in the large, seemingly empty chamber.
"I am but a vessel for the shadows of something greater than anything in our observable universe. Something that has been here before us, and will be here after us. You think hiding underground is keeping you safe? Or keeping you from their watchful gaze? Their meddling?"
"We never told you where we came from, nor about other humans out there." DrOS said, alarmed at the sudden change of tone and demeanour Frederick was displaying.
"No you didn't," Frederick replied as he pointed up into the empty air above him, foggy with the smoke from his cigarette, "They did, just now."
Both DrOS and Melissa looked up at the same time. DrOS saw nothing but Melissa started to scream in horror.
Becoming only slightly visible due to the cigarette smoke, she was beginning to see the outlines of shadows of variable size and shape that were filling up the entire room, gazing directly through her with intensity and pressure, while having no eyes.
"They are everywhere!" Melissa screamed.
As Melissa began to scream, DrOS began picking up big bursts of Davidson-Robina radiation that seemed to emanate from above them.
"I want to go home, I want to go home, DrOS. Take me home now! Please!" she continued to scream frantically.
DrOS hesitated to do as it promised Melissa: to return her only if and when she desired it. Before deciding what to do DrOS began firing at the various more dense accumulations of smoke above them. While it could not see the figures that were frightening Melissa, the radiation reading and the thickened smoke corresponded, so something had to be there. No matter how much DrOS fired its weapons, the smoke wouldn't dissipate or even move at all, it seemed no longer affected by conventional physics.
The song all around them continued to be majestic, but turned darker, grim and started to generate a feeling of increased weight in the air.
"Go on metal woman-operating system hybrid, you promised her you'd take her back, if she wanted," Frederic taunted, not quite sounding like the person they had met only minutes earlier, "Or is your curiosity making you more human than you'd hoped?"
Frederic turned his head upwards while spreading his arms. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"You've made me proud Augustin, so I'll give you what you want." Frederic said as he opened his eyes. He then took out a cigarette from the pocket of the lab coat without taking the packet out, reached for something from the inner pocket before he put the lab coat back onto the chair.
"We tried to play god. We probed into a greater world and it probed back. They had waited for us to do so, but that isn't important now."
He put out his hand towards DrOS.
"What you want to know is on this flash drive, but none of it matters now. It won't help."
Frederic threw the drive over which DrOS caught and stored in its breastplate. Without a moments hesitation it grabbed Melissa and flew up to the broken glass as quickly as possible. as fast as it could out of the facility the way they had come, leaving the arias to slowly fade behind them.
"You can't undo the world's ruin..." Were the last echoing words DrOS and Melissa heard as they sped through the corridors, accompanied by the loud and deafening metallic scratching of Frederick struggling to light his cigarette, over and over.
DrOS carrying Melissa made it out of the complex and without a moments pause launched itself into the air as the highest speed it could achieve. They left the bubble, then the valleys and over the woodlands, heading back to colony 147 without stopping.
DrOS was preoccupied with flying while Melissa looked down upon the various landscapes they had previously flown over. This time, however, she could not see the landscapes. Instead, she saw only uncountable shadows that were causing all the unexplained phenomena they had seen up until now. Crushing the land beneath them, drinking the oceans dry.
They never knew. All this time they were surrounded by monsters whom they were utterly powerless against, and really, had no concern for them in the slightest.