"Where am I?"
"The Nebuchadnezzar, my cousin's ship, on the twenty-second of November 2105. And it's four in the morning if you must know."
"2105?" he struggles to sit up, blinking to focus on the girl beside his bed. "It's only 2005."
"2005 has been and gone Raven," Nuala stands up, raising her arms above her head to stretch. "You woke me up moron. Couldn't you regain consciousness at a normal hour? Like ten am?"
He lets his head fall back against the metal wall. "How did I miss a hundred years? Is this the future?"
"Maybe in your dream you were in the past," she sits back down on the crate near him, folding her arms around herself.
"Well, what's the world like here? Now?"
"Cold. We've lost most of the outer settlements, everyone's going back to Zion now. We're losing the war, some say. Skat won't admit it though. Stubborn bastard," her voice lilts sleepily.
"War?" Raven is wide awake. "Against who?"
"The machines."
He stares at her as he tries to piece it all together. "The machines control the power plant?"
"And everything on the surface. After they rebelled they built the plant and the fields. There are rumours of other plants further away from here, they're probably true."
"Rebelled?"
She rubs her eyes, giving up on sleep. "Humans created AI about a hundred years ago. But early in 2017 the first machine killed a human. We don't actually know what happened, the details were lost, but there's a story about a house-cleaning android that was going to be shut down because it was out of date. It killed its owner. So naturally there was panic, and people tried to . . . " she yawns, holding her hand over her mouth, "destroy the AI in one fell swoop. Which quickly led to an all out war."
"Like Terminator."
"Hmm?"
"Nothing, a movie I saw. What saved the humans?"
"Zion. It was founded in 2005 by some paranoid group who were convinced they'd be bombed off the face of the earth or that Armageddon was on the way. They dug out a very large shelter under Nebraska or somewhere, and over time it got bigger and deeper. When the war started the surface wasn't safe any more, so everyone went to ground. There were other places besides Zion at first, not as deep, so a lot of people survived. Then there was the second Big Bang."
"What?"
"They thought that it might help win the war by cutting off the AI's power supply. But the machines relied on solar power. So in 2052, a group based in Australia managed to blow up a volcano, In doing so they wiped out most of Indonesia."
Ken swallows. A brief history of the world . . .
"It's a bit like the dinosaur story, no one can figure out exactly what happed to make all the smoke and ash stay in the atmosphere and not dissipate. Some think it got through the hole in the ozone layer and just hung around, others say there was actually a meteor shower that caused the pollution, not the nuked volcano."
"It mustn't have worked in any case."
"Oh it did, the solar panels the cities used couldn't pick up anything. And it allowed us to start fighting back properly, not just hiding."
"But, what did they do for power?"
"They already had an alternate supply."
"From what?"
She looks at him closely, hesitating before answering. "We can't prove this you understand."
"Prove what?"
"There's a reason we call those towers the power plant."
His mouth opens, but he can't say anything.
"They use humans for power. Body heat, we suspect. They grow the babies then move them to the plant. For years Zionites have been trying to free them, but the fields are too closely guarded and the ones from the plant just die. Most think that it's impossible to free anyone, but somehow you got out. You just, woke up."
He looks at her, trying to find something solid in her eyes to grasp. "I'm the only one who's ever come out?"
"The only one who's survived so long."
He sits back against the wall.
"Can I ask you something Raven?"
" . . . yes."
"What happened to you? What was it that made you come out?"
"I dreamt. I realised I was dreaming. And I woke up," he turns back to her. "My life has been nothing more than a dream. But there were people in there that I knew and loved and I'm never going to see them again."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
She tries a smile but he doesn't return it.
"Try to sleep Raven."
He knows he can't, but he lies down anyway and closes his eyes.
~~~
"Morning."
Nuala sits up slowly as Bluey comes in.
"How is he?"
"Fine."
"Sleep through the night?" the red head looks over Raven with a critical eye.
"No, he woke up about 0400 and asked to be filled in on world history."
"How much did you tell him?"
"Not everything."
The boy sleeps on, curled into the corner like a child.
"Get him up, we'll see him in the galley."
~~~
"Hey sleepy head. How are you?" Skat grins as Raven follows Nuala through the door.
"Okay."
The other crewmembers offer brief greetings, but he feels their eyes linger on the plugs in his arms that are visible below his rolled up sleeves.
"You haven't met anyone yet," Skat jumps up from the table. Raven feels a little intimidated by the young man's boundless energy. "This is Bluey, she's my right arm," the red head nods. "That's Luther at the sink," a tall broad man with dark curly hair smiles across the room. "Impala," a young woman with a shaved head and brown eyes looks up at him. "And Sparrow," the last is a boy in his late teens with a dark blonde mohawk and tattoos chasing around the wiry muscles in his arms. He smiles warmly.
"So, um, what is it you guys do?" Raven sits down at the table.
"Rescue damsels in distress," Impala smirks. Nuala snatches up a utensil and makes as if to throw it at the woman but Sparrow plucks it from her hand with a laugh.
"We used to take supplies from Zion to some of the settlements further out," Skat gets a bowl of something from Luther and carries it across to Raven.
"Used to?"
"The Echo camp was razed a week ago."
For a moment there is no sound but of Bluey, Impala and Sparrow eating and Luther putting things away.
"I'm sorry," Raven murmurs.
"It's not like it's your fault kid," Skat shrugs, putting the bowl in front of the boy. "Things like that happen. Eat up."
He scoops some of the thin stuff, taking a quick mouthful and swallowing quickly.
"Brave move," Impala says, "but you are allowed to gag."
"Um, what is it?"
"The essential stuff you need from food," Nuala explains, "made into a powder and then mixed with water. You've got the equivalent of a baked dinner in that little bowl."
"They don't make baked dinners any more," Sparrow stodges his own meal. Bluey keeps her head down as she eats, and Skat seems to have gone. "Do you have baked dinners where you come from, Raven?"
Suddenly all attention is on him. He realises they have no idea what his life was like, whether his mind was numb or awake or dreaming during his long sleep.
"I had everything where I came from."
"So, what were you thinking in there?" Sparrow continues the interrogation. Beside him, Nuala places her hand near his on the table, a silent offer.
"When I woke up it was the twentieth of November 2005. I was born in 1989, and for all that time I was living a life."
"You were asleep."
"I dreamt," without a word he takes Nuala's hand. "And if it wasn't real, it was at least a kind of real."
The others exchange glances. Bluey looks up from her plate and frowns at him.
"Does everyone in the plant dream?"
"Probably. Maybe we were all in the same dream."
"How did you wake up?"
"I don't know. I just did."
Somewhere above them an alarm rings, and a burst of static comes over an intercom.
- Luther! Get on deck and turn the power offline, we've got company -
The big man swings around the kitchen bench and goes for the door. Bluey is on her feet in a second, taking Raven by the elbow.
"Come on kid, you've got to be quiet now," the others follow close behind them as they clamber up a ladder to the deck. Raven tries to hurry, his arms feeling shaky from lack of use.
Luther is at a desk of controls, flicking switches and hammering buttons, his large fingers nimble. Bluey continues up another ladder to a catwalk, then hurries toward the front of the ship. Raven and Nuala follow a little slower, eventually reaching the cockpit.
Glass, or something like it, is a faint mirror in front of the pilot's seats. Lights and dials are reflected, and beyond Raven can see nothing but fog. Wreaths of grey and black surround them and hide any signs of movement.
"Luther, power down now!" Skat's voice is urgent into the microphone. Noticing the two behind him, he glances back. "Nuala, keep an eye on him."
Raven obediently stays quiet.
A faint sound, then all the lights die. Beyond the window it seems a little lighter.
Nuala folds her arms, cold. Raven shivers.
A shadow.
"Don't move," Bluey whispers from beside the captain. There is silence throughout the ship, and Raven hardly dares breathe.
A shape forms. Like some primitive octopus built by someone who only vaguely knew what it should look like. Swimming through the mist, it hovers for a moment, but passes by without seeming to notice them.
There is more than one. A second comes by, closer to them, and Raven can see it better. Long tentacles trail behind it, and there is only a faint humming sound as the machine flies past the ship without hesitation.
Still nobody moves.
After a long silence Bluey murmurs, "Were there only two?"
"I think so. Luther," Skat lifted the mike, "Get the bridge online." A few lights flicker on, the essential instruments. Skat looks at the radar, adjusts something and rereads it. "That's it. There's no more."
"What were they?" Raven asks.
"We call them sentinels," Bluey turns around. "There're different types, but those ones are the newest. Squiddies. In the 2060s the machines began building a bigger army. Nothing can destroy them but an EMP, and only if they're in range."
Raven folds his arms inside the sleeves of his hand-me-down sweater.
At war with machines that are that big, that powerful . . . this is worse than Terminator.
This is real.
~~~~~
For those of you who may be confused about the ships, I've a little known fact to tell you. Morpheus' Neb isn't the first. The plaque seen in the movie is from Skat's ship that was built in 2069, and Morpheus' ship was built from its remains. I probably shouldn't have told you that, but I either spoiled the story or confused people.
So just know that there aren't any 'dentist chairs' on this ship. They aren't invented yet.