A Creative Vision of the Future: Beyond 2050 – James Brindley

 

Of the behemoth’s death, there was only one witness. The probe, long since forgotten by those that launched it, registered an unexpected contact on its scanners. Its sensors automatically focused on the approaching object, recording apparatus clicking into life, attempting to force more data onto a drive long since corrupted. Radio receivers on its hull were assaulted by fragmented distress signals, growing clearer as the object closed distance.

...any that can hear...catastrophic damage...engines...impact...assistance…

                The probe’s lenses contracted as the anomaly grew closer, larger, impossibly large. A mass of steel and machinery the size of a city. The probe’s vision narrowed further, focusing on the gouts of flame and metal that erupted from a wound in the city-machine’s hide. Calculations were made, and a short, controlled burst from one thruster saw the witness out of collision range. The beast’s enormity filled the probe’s vision as it shot past. With it this near, the probe was able to record organic matter joining the synthetics being torn from the thing’s side. Some of it twitched as it drifted, before cooling on the probe’s thermal readers, red heat fading to the blue-black of the void. A camera clicked. Once. Twice. Three times, and the anomaly was past. Spinning gently, the probe watched as it began to dwindle in its view. Dispassionate eyes marked the final gutting of the machine. Engines flared impossibly bright, miniature supernovas bursting into being for a fraction of a second at a time. Once. Twice. Three times. Then, finally, they fell into slumber, never to wake again.

The probe was alone once more.

 ***

  Clank

If he was quiet, he could occasionally hear the others mocking him. The unimaginative said he was named for the sound his prosthetic made when he walked. The vile said it was for the sound he made when his infant body first fell from between his mother’s legs and hit the floor. The fearful whispered that it was for the sound the wrench made when it hit her skull.

They were all right, in a way, yet all wrong.

Only the faithful knew the true reason he was Clank. They knew, though they would never tell, that he had once had a flesh-name, in the years before he was born again. They were the only ones who knew that cursed collection of syllables, for he had long since purged it from his memory, the way one removed a blockage that stopped a machine from running true. No, he was Clank now, and he had never been closer to his god.

 To be given a machine-name was to be recognised as an aspirant. It was but the first step in ascendancy, but an important one. In a world such as his, filled with such heresy and corruption, a single step was more than many ever took.

Shaking his head, he ducked under a low-hanging pipe. He moved slowly, yet with purpose, the bare metal of his right leg striking the steel grating with a regular rhythm. In some parts of the Great One, one was wise to be silent, to pass through without attracting the notice of the natives. This was not such a place. He turned a corner, finding himself on the Starboard Holy Path. The borosilicate glass of the windows here was engraved with sacred imagery, each portal to the Emptiness etched with another lesson of the history of the Great Journey. One day, when the Cogseers judged him worthy, he would carve a new segment into the next window to be adorned.

A sound made him pause. The Great One echoed with countless different noises as it pushed through the Emptiness, and to an untrained initiate this would be just that; the click of metal cooling in the walls, or maybe the tap of debris brushing the hide of the holy one.

He was no such fool.

Clank shifted his weight, reaching inside his robes. The shiv he pulled from its sheath was not sanctified, as it would be if he thought he was facing wayward disciples of the Great One. No holy oil had bathed its rough edges, and no salvation would be given to those that died to its bite. This was his intention. The parasites that infested the once pure confines of the Path deserved no less.

“Come now, unclean one. Show yourself.” His voice echoed through the hallway, bouncing off the many shadowed corners that hid themselves from his sight. He waited. No reply was given to his challenge, vocal or otherwise. He sighed. With exaggerated movements, he pretended to sheathe his blade, instead pushing it into the depths of his sleeve. Pausing one more, he waited. Nothing. He rolled his eyes. It appeared that the parasite was as cowardly as it was heretical.

It took two more minutes for his prey to work up its nerve. Moving past a bulkhead emblazoned with ancient symbols, his warning came in the form of a sudden shift in the air. He ducked sideways as a wrench whistled through the space his head had occupied a moment earlier. Spinning around, he took in his adversary’s appearance.

The man opposite him was crouched in a hunter’s stance, his muscles tensed and ready to leap again. His face was covered by a dense, wiry beard that was gathered in places by cable ties. He was silent, studying Clank with fierce eyes, his ragged clothes rustling slightly as he shifted stance.

Clank’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “Such a trespass is bold even for your kind, raider.”

The man straightened, keeping his distance. “We hunt-go where we want-will.”

The raider’s barbarian tongue grated on Clank, who stepped closer to the smaller man. His opponent immediately moved backways, the soft foam strapped to his feet making no noise on the gangway.

“We have never had peace, parasite. Your kind is willfully ignorant to the heartbeat of the Great One. However, to come alone into holy ground? Perhaps you seek absolution? Perhaps you know this is the one chance at redemption before you pass?” Clank examined the man’s face. “No, I think not.”

The raider’s eyes flicked to Clank’s right, and the priest turned as a great weight slammed into his side. He hit the ground hard, the metal grating digging into his cheek as the stench of unwashed flesh washed over him.

“Hold-bind him!”

Rough hands grappled with Clank, attempting to pin him as he struggled against his ambusher. He cursed as a fist struck him hard in the side, battling with the nausea that washed over him. A hand grabbed him by the shoulder, and he bit down hard on the arm attached to it, revelling in the scream of pain as his metal canine teeth penetrated the flesh. Hot blood poured into Clank's mouth, and he spat it out, smiling viciously as the metallic tang brought forth holy fervour and gave strength to his limbs.

With a great heave, he threw the wounded man off of him, springing up after him. The raider’s eyes were wild with rage and agony, and Clank leapt forward towards him, only to duck at the last moment as his original foe took the opportunity to swing at him with the wrench. Moving under the swing, Clank let his shiv slide into his grasp, and he stabbed into the raider’s armpit. The man screamed. Slipping behind the man, he drew the blade across the man’s throat, showering his companion in his lifeblood before he could react.

Spasming, Clank’s victim fell to the floor, his head hitting the steel with a satisfying crunch.

Looking up from the still shuddering body, his eyes fell upon the other raider. His face where it wasn’t saturated with blood was pale as void-frost. Leaning slightly against the bulkhead, the man seemed unsure whether to attack or flee, and had settled on the doomed equilibrium of simply freezing.

Stepping towards him, shiv in hand, Clank made ready to end another worthless life. He stopped as an idea came over him.

“When you go back to your hovels in the engine-shards, tell your scum friends what I’ve said. Starboard is holy land. Keep to your lands, keep to raiding other parasites that glut on the Great One’s essence, and you may know safety for a time. But if you ever cross into the light again, Clank will come for you all.”

The man took a cautious step backwards.

“Take your meat-slave with you. Run.”

Under Clank’s leering gaze, the raider began to drag his friend away, the body leaving a smear of crimson on the grey floor. Only when the man had turned a corner did the priest turn away. Soon, the hallway began to ring again with the steps of his leg, as was right. Walking back the way he came, Clank’s thoughts turned to the future.

The Cogseers needed to be told of this development.

***

 Edwin

Through the static cause by the ship’s aged wiring, Edwin watched in horror as the man lurched off camera, leaving only a bloodstained hallway to show sign of his passage.

It was his duty as a Watchman to man the security terminal and record what was happening elsewhere in the ship, but duty had never softened the blow of seeing so much brutality.

Shaken by the brutal scene played out in front of him, he checked the door seals again. The computer’s lights blinked green on all. He shivered in relief. Many times in the past he’d cursed the de-facto imprisonment that his superiors had forced upon him and his people. When he’d been young and naive, he’d cried out with other revolutionaries to break the doors that kept them from the rest of the ship. They’d pleaded with the high command, entreating with them to let them loose to discover what had happened to the rest of the colony ship over the three hundred years it had been drifting through space. Command had returned a simple message, time and time again.

Request denied. The ship is lost. We are the last.

He knew now that they were right. While there were technically other humans left on the ship, they had gone savage, lost to madness and extended isolation. In some cases, they could barely even be called sapient any more.

From what he could judge from his three years at his station, there were at least three major tribes that had formed in the ruin of the abandoned sectors. To the starboard, the middle section of the ship was overrun by a cult of machine worshipping fanatics, bent on extensive, invasive body modifications to bring themselves closer to their idols. They occupied a vast swathe of the ship’s old engineering, research and development and secondary life support sectors. Terrifyingly, they seemed to be the most organised of the survivor groups, capable even of working basic machinery, albeit with needlessly complex ceremonies that would be pitiable if they weren’t so zealously overseen.

Aft of the ship, amidst the ruins of the long dead engines, small roving tribes made their home, salvaging and hunting where they could, raiding when they felt it was necessary. Though at first glance it would seem that they were simply trying to survive, Edwin had seen what had become of a similar tribe when they had crossed paths.

To the portside of the vessel, Edwin’s cameras were next to useless. The leakage of oxygen pipes in the area combined with a breakdown in the kilometers of hydroponics bays had led to an explosion of foliage in the area. What cameras were still active in that area were covered by leaves and other greenery. The others were slowly dwindling, dying in bursts of static and half seen figures. It appeared that whoever had made Portside their home didn’t want any prying eyes. Occasionally Edwin witnessed raiders entering the pseudo-jungle on cameras bordering the sector. Those few that exited bore mounds of fruit and other vegetation but carried as many wounds as they did prizes. Many simply vanished, claimed by the trees. The cultists wisely stuck to Starboard, simply burning away any vegetation that began to encroach on their land.

Edwin licked his lips nervously, his bloodshot eyes moving over to a block of monitors that were free from broken cameras. In them, he saw sanctuary. In the wake of the collision that had gutted the vessel, the captain of the time had apparently decided to abandon the rest of the ship, sealing it off in the hope of saving what was left. In the top row of monitors, the cameras showed row upon row of stasis pods. In these were the original crew, deemed too valuable to allow the ravages of time to take hold. The only time singular crew members were awakened was by high command mandate, in the event that the population’s genetic diversity reached critically low levels. In addition, in very rare cases, an exemplary individual was interred within an empty pod, to serve as a generation’s ambassador come the possibility of salvation, in whatever form that might be.

A few of the hydroponics bays had fallen sanctuary-side of the ancient lockdown, and so the true survivors had enough food to go around. It was, for all intents and purposes, a self-contained population, content in their fragile safety.

As if in answer to Edwin’s unspoken doubt, a light flickered amber on his console. He sighed. The portside vents had always been a weak spot in the security network. It was likely a pressure sensor giving out under the wear and tear of so much time without proper maintenance. If he was honest, part of him was tempted to go down there himself one day, seal the damn thing off once and for all.

He wheeled himself over to the offending light, chewing on his bottom lip.

No, better safe than sorry. He pressed a button next to the light, sending the few security drones available to secure the area. He dreaded to think what would happen if they ever ran out. There had never been a true breach of the blockade, and in the long years of peace the guardsman had dwindled in number and effectiveness.

He shook himself as paranoia settled on his shoulders. Annoyed at himself, he wrote a report file of the incident, then turned back to the patchwork of monitors, eyes peeled for any sign of movement.

***

He-Who-Stalks

He-Who-Stalks crouched silently in the vent, one finger raised to beckon the warriors behind him to be similarly quiet. In the space beyond the false wall of leaves, a metal Watcher hovered, its magical eye pulsing red as it scanned the cramped confines around it. His heart hammered in his chest, and he waited for the eye to turn on him, see through his crude deception and steal his soul, leaving his body to die without light.

The moment never came, as the Watcher chimed once, its eye turning green as it passed them, moving towards the Green-That-Shelters. If it emerged from its crawlway, his rearguard would be swift in their attack, and one more Watcher would decorate the trunk of the Heart-of-Trees. He doubted it would be so foolish though. The guardians of the trickster gods would not leave their masters’ side for long. He would have only moments to move before it was upon them again.

He would only need moments...

No, the Watchers were vigilant today. Better to not lose another warrior. Better to wait for another time, when his passage might pass unnoticed.

Soon, though, he would break into the Garden-Of-Trickery. It would be soon, he was sure.

And oh, on that day, what a feast we shall have!

Back to blog