Human Resilience

“John! We’ve found another piece of oldentech, Erica just found it!” a faint voice echoes from somewhere up the mining shaft where John is currently excavating.

John raises his head slowly, somewhat skeptical about what, if anything, this will lead to. They haven’t found anything viable in years, and John is beginning to think that all of this was futile and a waste of valuable resources.

Reluctantly, John drops his trowel and brush, lets out a deep sigh and begins to get up off his knees.

“IT'S STILL FUNCTIONAL! FUNCTIONAL!” A short, disheveled man wearing a full body protective suit comes barreling around the corner, out of breath he gasps “YOU. HAVE TO. GO TO. SHAFT. FORTY… SHAFT FORT... SHAFT 43!”

John puts his hand on the man's shoulder and says “Ok Amir, thank you, take a break, drink some water, I’ll head over to 43 immediately”.

Amir, gasping and unable to speak, nods in agreement.

John makes his way towards the exit, his pace quickening with every step. John's facial expressions change in quick succession.

“Ok, pull it together, keep your cool” John says out loud to himself. He stops and takes a long deep breath. “Stoic composure John, stoic composure”.

He lifts his head up to take a look at the landscape from the entrance of the shaft. It’s not the beautiful vista he’s seen so many times in oldentech photos and books he’s recovered. It’s a barren wasteland, no buildings, no life at all. The skies are dark grey, they always have been, no blue skies, no sun, no moon, no stars… just dark grey clouds, a strange glowing dust fills the air, and constant lightning storms. An orange haze paints the horizon. This is the only world John knows.

John smacks himself in the back of the head. “Damn it FOCUS! This isn't the time for daydreams!”

A few steps and John hops on his bike. It’s more of a bicycle frame, modified to use motorcycle wheels, with the chain attached to a generator, which powers a small electrical engine that he recovered from shaft 17 several years back, which pulls a small trailer... Anyways, let’s just call it a bike for now.

John is pedaling frantically, pushing his bike to its limits. Parts of oldentech are falling off the trailer as he drives over the rugged terrain. He doesn’t care, it’s not worth stopping, Erica might be in danger.

John is having flashbacks of a bomb they had uncovered in shaft 28 many years ago, where 68 people lost their lives trying to figure out what it was. When there’s only 917 known survivors left on earth, it’s an enormous loss. John picks up the pace.

As John comes over a small hill, he can see the entrance to shaft 43 below in the valley. He jumps off the bike before it comes to a halt, and disappears into the shaft.

“ERICA!” John yells as he runs down the shaft. John can now make out Erica’s silhouette. “ERICA!” he yells again, this time receiving a response.

“It’s ok John, I'm ok!” yells Erica. “It’s functional, LOOK!” Erica holds up a rectangular artifact, a glass screen is cracked but an image of a green rectangular shape can be seen, with the words ‘charging… 100%’. A wire coming out of the ground is attached to it.

As John approaches Erica, he realizes he’s seen these before, but never has he seen one that’s functional. Nobody knows what this is anymore. Whatever it was, that knowledge is long gone. John is the only one left alive who has a basic understanding of ancient English. He’s studied several oldenbooks that describe ‘electronics’ but the concept is still unclear. “Don’t touch that wire, put it down gently Erica”.

Erica slowly puts the artifact down, takes a few steps back and turns to John. “It’s got a half-eaten fruit symbol on it, do you think this thing can make food?” She asks.

“Look, just stay back ok? I don't know exactly what these things are, I need to study it.” he says.

“John, take it easy.” Erica says. “Why would they put a picture of a half-eaten fruit on this ‘thing’ if it had nothing to do with food? That doesn’t make any sense, calm down” she says sarcastically.

“Look Erica, we don't know, ok? If anything happens to either of us there won't be anyone left that…”

Erica interjects with authority “Who cares?! We have 214 gallons of potable water left. And food? Less than a month! If this thing goes wrong it won't matter much in the overall, will it?”

John looks down at his feet and reluctantly nods in agreement, “I guess you’re right”.

Erica opens the front pocket of her protective suit and pulls out a heart-shaped locket. “Here John” she says while holding out the locket, “I want you to have this. It’s kept me safe all these years”.

John smiles at Erica and shakes his head. “Thanks, but you know I’m not much for superstitions, you keep it”.

Erica clutches the heart-shaped locket tightly in her hands and quietly says to John, “well, whatever we’re going to do, we better get started”. John nods in agreement and steps towards the artifact.

“What do you make of this green box image, what do you suppose it represents?” John asks Erica.

“I’ve seen this several times, on many artifacts. My guess is it symbolizes an energy source”, Erica replies.

“That would be consistent with the writing here. ‘Char-jee-ing’ I believe means it's allocating energy to some sort of internal power source, and we know what ‘100%’ means” says John.

Holding up the artifact to inspect it, the wire becomes loose and disconnects from the artifact. Erica and John gasp, expecting some sort of explosive result.

The screen goes black for a second, they look at the artifact with wonder. A white, half-eaten fruit pops up on the screen. “What is it doing? Is it making food?” Erica cries out.

“I'm not sure exactly but I…” John's words are interrupted by the artifact, which is now showing a picture of a young woman holding a baby. “WOW!” exclaims Erica, “What in the world?”

John looks at the screen and tries to make sense of what he’s seeing. “Swipe right to unlock” the screen reads at the bottom. “Wait, ‘right’ as in correct? Or perhaps this is ‘right’ as in the direction?” John says with a confused look on his face.

“UN-LACK, that word, I've seen it before. I’m pretty sure it means to open or release or unfasten” Erica says excitedly. “Move the artifact to the right, maybe it’ll release food!”

John raises an eyebrow in doubt. “I don't think humanity ever got so advanced as to create food out of nothing”, he says with a chuckle “but, I think you’re right about opening this thing”.

Erica smiles while looking at the photo, “I’ve never even seen a baby before, they’re kind of weird looking”.

“What do you think this is?” Erica says, while pointing at a pacifier, her finger moving right across the screen, unlocking the device. “Oh my god! What happened?”

John looks at the screen, pondering his next move when suddenly a box appears in the middle of the screen. “Select Network” it reads. “Progeny” is the only listed option and a button at the bottom reads “Connect”.

John's trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. “I've read about ‘neet-wurks’ before, and that word ‘cuh-nekt’ means to attach or conjoin. No idea what ‘pruh-gee-knee’ means though”.

Erica leans over and puts her finger on ‘Progeny’ which causes the ‘connect’ button to highlight. “Stop touching things!” John yells.

“OK calm down, look the ‘cuh-nekt’ button is white now, so it should conjoin this device to another device named ‘progeny’ or something, right?” Erica asks.

“In theory perhaps, but this is unprecedented territory Erica, we might be making a huge mistake here” John says.

“John... half-eaten fruits definitely did not lead to the destruction of humanity, ok?” Erica says with a smirk.

“I wouldn't be so sure about that kiddo, it could very well have played a part. Either way, we don't know”, John replies.

John takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “Here goes nothing!” he says, touching the connect button. Erica and John are holding their breath, clenching their teeth in awkward anticipation.

“Ugh, I guess whatever ‘progeny’ is, it must not be functioning. We’ll have to try some--” John stops speaking abruptly, a rumbling noise can be heard in the distance. The rumbling gets louder and louder, eventually shaking the ground beneath their feet.

“What the heck is happening John!” Erica yells. “Are we going to die?” she whimpers as a tear falls down her cheek.

The roaring and rumbling suddenly come to a stop and a loud thud shakes the ground.

“We’re still alive!”, John says while placing a hand on Erica's shoulder.

John raises his head, looking up the long tunnel leading to the entrance of the shaft. A beam of light shines down. “Something’s coming, that can't be Amir”. The footsteps get louder.

Three figures appear, John can see these are clearly humanoid creatures, wearing some sort of dark, metallic looking suits with a light attached to their shoulder. “What the heck have I done?” John yells.

“Have you come to help us? Identify yourselves! What say you!” John yells with his arms spread out wide.

The soldierly figures stop moving, look at each other and take a few steps back. One of them puts his hand on his helmet, exposing his human face behind an energy shield.

As John makes eye contact with them, he can tell they’re just as surprised and distraught as he is. He puts his hands up and waves them side to side while shouting “we are not hostile, we are not armed, please do not hurt us”

The two other soldiers step forward, lifting their helmet and exposing their faces. They all look at each other in amazement. “Que paso ici? ist es möglich? Contacto la commande centrale!” yells the largest of the three. His distraught teammate holds his wrist to his mouth and yells “Commandant, ici flex squad venti-uno. Informe de contacto avec uno survivante! Aviser s’il vous plaît"

“I can't understand anything they’re saying. What do we do, what do we do?!” Erica screams, getting more and more frightened.

“Just stay calm, don't make any sudden movements. It sounded like ancient languages, possibly spanish, french, italian… stay calm.” John says in a hushed tone.

A voice responds from the wristband communication device, “Interrogative, eso uno humani? Sind sie feindselig oder nicht? C’est impossible!” The man quickly raises his arm and replies “Nicht feindselig, c’est des humani, no hay duda de eso. No danger detected.”

John suddenly looks up, he knows what he just heard. It’s ancient english, mixed with other languages apparently but he knows what ‘no danger detected’ means.

John falls to his knees and begs “YES, I AM HUMAN, NO DANGER! HELP US PLEASE, NO DANGER, NO DANGER!”

One of the soldiers steps forward and extends his hand and says softly, “humani, help, no danger”. He looks John in the eyes, “Moi aussi eso uno humani, no danger, ich bin auch hier for help.” He taps his chest and says “Sono Andreas”.

John jumps up and hugs Andreas. He turns towards Erica, “her name is Erica.” then taps his chest and says “I am John”. The soldier nods at Erica and says softly “Erica, no danger”

With a sigh of relief, Erica opens her hands and looks fondly at her heart-shaped locket. She grasps the locket tightly and holds it against her chest.

Andreas looks at Erica and grins devilishly. He grabs Erica's hand tightly. A voice suddenly booms loudly from his communicator.

“Survivors 1367 and 1368, you are now under the jurisdiction of the Better Living Initiative, you will report to orientation immediately”.

*Fade to black*