Genesis 8:21 "The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done"
In 2348 BC after the great flood and subsequent cessation of all life, God promised to never destroy the earth again. In 2064 AD Ted Faro unknowingly took up the mantle for him with the creation of intelligent machine's that could heal, replicate, and consume with wanton abandon. In 15 months time they left the earth stripped of every living organism on its surface, leaving a desolate apocalyptic landscape littered with dormant machines. Those few who escaped the onslaught faced their own hells confined within sealed communities far underground. Their "reward" for their service to Zero Dawn, the failsafe and the only logical answer there had been to the destruction. There was no grand solution, no hope for the masses, only a look to the possible future of mankind that they would themselves never see.
With the explosion of the Odyssey it had seemed like any and all hope was lost. Far Zenith had sank everything it had into that mission and in a matter of minutes it literally went up in smoke. Of course it was only after launch had a few left behind been made aware of the true intentions of the mission and the resulting destruction that was presently cutting a devastating path across the globe. We knew what it meant. We were the fodder while the wolves sought to escape. Maybe it was divine justice that blew the ship up, maybe it was a visual culmination of the state of all their hope and dreams for the future that was currently littering the thermosphere. Far Zenith was no more. The head honchos were gone, the financials depleted and desolation steadily advanced ever closer. Many staff had left to be with their families, very few remained behind.
Glancing over at the hand holding out the beer, a small nod of acknowledgement as she reached out to take the glass bottle, popping the top off and pinging it off the opposite wall as the first cool refreshing mouthful of the liquid within rushed down her throat. She never did much like the taste of beer but it was as good a time as any to enjoy it's more calming effects on the senses.
"So Richard took off about an hour ago, said he wanted to try to make it back home"
Alan slid down against the wall taking his place beside her, his own half finished beer clenched in slightly trembling hands, the office sat empty, a far cry from its usual bustling ambiance. Staff vacated long ago, leaving everything intact, not much worth in stealing when the world is going to hell and money is no more than glorified tinder.
"Better than us languishing here like sitting ducks" she dryly retorted, idly swirling the contents of the beer around within the bottle.
"Why are you still here then?" A touch of irritation laced his words. Morgan pondered the question. Far Zenith had been a highly prestigious internship straight out of college, like Ivy League rated schools, they only accepted the best of the best and entry was cutthroat. 'The future' Dalgarrd had put it, our work would catapult mankind deep into the stars. In exchange for greatness they asked for nothing short of your entire life, countless hours of research and development, no time for anything else. Weren't willing to give it up, well then you "obviously didn't have the drive and ambition for what we're trying to achieve here"
"For the same reasons as you, nothing to go home to but half dead plants and an empty fridge."
"When you say it like that it really puts life into perspective" he threw his head back, emptying the contents of the bottle before chucking the glass to the far corner of the room.
"I spent all my time here Alan because they managed to convince us what we were the future of space exploration and colonization. But look at what we've managed to achieve in our misspent youth, our stocks have plummeted, every ectogenic chamber we painstakingly poured our blood, sweat, and tears into has turned into a firework along with the Odyssey, and there is a swarm of machines choking the life out of the earth which will slowly kill us if they don't manage to get us first."
"How can you be so nonchalant about this"
"I'm fucking terrified Alan" she exclaimed slamming the amber bottle to the ground beside her, the impact bursting it into a thousand tiny fragments in a mist of foamy beer which now drenching the ground beside her. Her sudden loud burst of profanity had startled Alan, generally Morgan was a level headed person, never quick to anger, always ready to offer a solution to any small trouble. This outburst while expected and warranted really wasn't helping his anxiety.
"I'm a problem solver Alan, you put an issue in front of me and sooner or later I can fix it or maneuver my way around it, but this…..I can't fix this. There is no way around it, no brilliant solution waiting to go eureka, there is literally nothing I can do but sit here and wait. I can't go home to family because I don't have any, no friends because I put this fucking company before all that trying to further my career with the expectation that there would be time for all that afterwards. My stressed brain is trying to cope with its impending demise the best way it knows how, apathy."
"The greatest collective minds of our lifetime are struggling to stop this, and everyone thinks there is hope with Enduring Freedom knowing it's nothing but lambs to the slaughterhouse while they make plans for a future without us. We're not even supposed to know that information, because they want people the keep fighting to give them time. Erica relayed that to me before she just disappeared of the face of the earth. Knowing what we know, are we any better keeping that to ourselves?"
"What use would it be, on their feet fighting, or cowering in an office like us, either way we're going to die. At least this way it's giving them time to work on something." Alan's eyes wandered to the holo projection. The news was a constant relay of the same thing day after day. The machines were advancing, at the cost of high human casualties. Those same casualties only serving to feed the replication and furthering the onslaught.
"Is 15 months really enough time to make such drastic technological leaps that will allow the human race to live on after this?" Morgan scoffed.
"If it had survived, the Odyssey would have colonized another planet. That's no small feat. We created and perfected ectogenic machines to help seed life in space, imagine what all the top minds paired with infinite money and focus can achieve, even in just 15 months"
"Wait a minute, what did you say?" Morgan questioned.
"I said imagine…."
"No before that!" Jumping to her feet, she grabbed Alan's face, imploring him to focus. "…before that"
"We created and perfected ectogenic machines to help seed life in space?"
This new demeanor was frightening Alan, where previously she'd consigned to their fate, an ember of survival was steadily growing. It was as if he could visualize the wheels moving inside her brain in real-time. Shuffling around the nearest desk, she sent stationary and equipment flying left and right until she held up what she'd razed the desk for, a keycard. The board were so preoccupied with the launch they saw no reasoning to strip any access from the remaining facilities, it was all worthless to them at the time.
"What did we do with the prototypes?"
"With each version we worked on the previous versions should have been repurposed, the materials were too valuable to just scrap."
"Far Zenith pushed the launch way ahead of schedule after finding out about the machines, they had all hands on deck to make that launch window, no one else had the time to devote to anything else, much less scrapping machines."
"Are you saying there may be a few half working machines stashed away in the basement, with full access to all low level laboratories and equipment?"
For the first time since this ordeal all began, a that small glint of hope sparked inside her. heading to the reinforced door in the far right corner, she held her breath, swiping the card through the access point. The light flashed green as the lock disengaged. Turning the latch, she pushed open the heavy steel door, the safety lights slowing coming on, revealing the stairs that led down into the lower laboratories that were now being illuminated.
The brilliant minds behind Far Zenith may have been all but destroyed but they were recruited for a reason. Like any highly technological company, it was the workers behind the scenes that were the real unsung heroes. Looking back to Alan, that small ember from before was now forming into a raging fire.
"I'm saying imagine what we could achieve in 15 months"