City-Ship Ascension

Geostationary orbit

It was the morning of the next day and Michael had got up late, once again enjoying the luxury of his own bed. Not that anything was wrong with the beds on the massive space station, but he had already broken this one in, so sleep came much easier.

The quarantine had been officially lifted last night, and everybody was more than ready to return home to the Ascension. There was a quiet gathering organized to celebrate their return, but not actually a party, given that they were all still under the shroud of sadness, which so many deaths placed on them. Maybe it would be more appropriate to call it a wake; people enjoying the closeness of others, grateful that not one Solarian Union citizen had died from the plague that had killed so many.

Placed on a pillow beside him was a short message from Elizabeth. She informed him that she went early to work since the backlog in the intelligence section had grown to an impressive size. She could have left a message using her CEI, it would be far much easier, yet she always left handwritten notes, a habit she had no intention to break.

Michael poured himself a freshly brewed cup of coffee and went to his favorite place in the apartment. A small balcony, that reminded him of the deck on his grandfather’s cabin; he even placed his old Adirondack chair on it, one of the few salvaged things from the cabin’s destruction. Max had managed, through clever use of plants and holograms, to achieve an effect of open space; even the air had that distinctive scent of a pine forest.

The slight shimmering wave in the corner of his eyes told him that Max had materialized his hologram on the balcony.

“Michael, there is something on the station I need you to do,” The AI interrupted his wandering thoughts.

“Please tell me that it isn't another emergency, we just got home for goodness sake,” he grumbled into his cup.

“No, nothing of the sort, it is about that AI we retrieved from the bottom of the Mariana Trench. I finished building all the supporting systems needed to activate it. All that remains is to physically plug-in the AI-core and to see what we are dealing with. So… do you want to do the honors?” Max asked with a smirk.

Michael almost spat out the last sip of coffee. “O hell yeah, finally! I’ve been thinking about it from time to time, wondering what secrets were buried there.”

“I know, my records show you’ve been asking about it 3.7 times per week, so get dressed and I’ll warm up the Excalibur,” the AI told him, and then his hologram disappeared.

This time, the trip to the station was noticeably shorter as it was closing in on Earth. It had started executing breaking maneuvers, so it would arrive at its designated orbit with minimal velocity.

An hour later, he found himself again looking at the shiny colossal marble, which he saw as a promise for a greater future than he first envisioned.

The spaceship didn’t approach the station at its usual entrance in the middle, or the landing bay. Instead, the Excalibur flew to the very bottom.

“It is in a separate and secure level, where I built all the support systems needed to run that AI-core,” Max explained when he asked him about it. “The enclosure itself has no outside connection, except the single one that I control, and that can be disconnected at a moment’s notice—if something goes wrong.”

They went through the customary series of multiple airlocks until they entered the level itself. It was smaller than any other he had been to, with bare metal walls and a simple white ceiling, that emitted a plain diffused light.

The only two things that broke the monotony of space were the central pillar, which took a fair amount of available space, and a small metal cube that grew in size as the spaceship approached it. Max landed the ship close to the cube and Michael realized it was the size of a small house, completely featureless with the walls of polished metal, in which he could see his reflection.

“Isn’t this a bit… too much?” He asked, looking at the visually sterile surroundings.

“I didn’t want to take any chances for something to go wrong if the mind housed inside that AI-core turned to be malicious. For that reason, I built this. A completely closed system with only one hard cable to enable me to monitor what is happening inside, and the cable itself is rigged so it can be severed within a millisecond.”

The wall in front of him had only a vague outline of the doors that opened as he approached the building.

He took a few steps inside, then stopped surprised by a strange sight in front of him. The first part of the enclosed space was empty, but the second, towards the back, was a jungle of complex machinery and cables. It reminded him of something a crazy scientist in a movie would do, not a product of a highly developed technological civilization.

“I like what you did with the place. Didn’t you hear about cable management?” Michael asked and heard the slight echo his words produced.

“Most of those things are part of the security system I installed after the fact. Everything needed for the AI operation is built within the wall and under the floor.” The AI replied.

Michael walked across the room until he came close to the machinery, and a familiar-looking pedestal standing in the middle. It was the spitting image to the one he saw in that chamber at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. On top of it was the AI-core cube with a yellow Post-it note that said “AI-core—place into the indentation.” Another yellow Post-it note was above the indentation in the middle of the pedestal. It had an arrow pointing down, and the words “AI-core goes here.”

“Funny,” Michael smirked.

“I thought so too, in case you got confused.”

He took the surprisingly heavy AI-core in his hands, and once again marveled that this object could store an entire human mind within itself. He carefully placed it at the indicated position and watched as the translucent cube slowly sunk inside the pedestal and disappeared from his view. A few moments later, countless little lights started flashing, all over the strange machines.

“It’s initializing… there is a viable AI inside,” Max informed him. “It should be fully functional in a minute.”

Not long after that, a holo-screen above the machine activated and an image of a middle-aged man appeared on it. He looked confused and disoriented, and then he started speaking in an unknown language.

“I was afraid of that, he needs some time to adjust, and to be taught how to communicate with us. It is going to take a while.”

“Well… that sucks,” Michael said while the holo-screen in front of him turned off.

“I’m talking about the compressed time; it will only be a few hours for you. To tell it in the way of a great philosopher, ‘here stand and finish for me you wait, or to the residential level go and new things you see. Choose wisely, my young padawan, hmm,’” Max intoned imitating a voice of the familiar little green alien.

Michael shook his head and exited the building. He used the elevator in the central pillar and pressed the holographic button that indicated the residential level. The view that opened up in front of him, when the lift’s door opened again, was far more beautiful than the last time he was on this level.

All through the health crisis on Earth, the work on the station never stopped, and it was progressing at an amazing pace. The brown earth that used to cover the entire floor was now green with the layer of fresh grass, making it the biggest lawn he has ever seen. Hundreds of trees were already transplanted from Earth, the beginning of the forest envisioned in the designs.

In the distance, he could see dozens of people working to transform this space into a living world. Specially designed transporters were bringing tall trees, while the crews on the ground were positioning them into their prepared places.

He took one of the communal golf carts, which were conveniently parked close to the central pillar, and drove himself to the lake, a few miles away. People were waving at him as he passed, and he acknowledged them by raising his hand. He was not even completely sure if they recognized him, but everyone here was part of the growing community. He parked close to the water line and sat on the shore, watching the small fish swim in the clear lake.

“Michael, there is a slight change of plans,” Max said through his implant.

“What happened? Did you manage to communicate with him?” Michael asked.

“Oh yes, that wasn’t hard at all. The original ship’s language I translated was the one he used, but there is a lot more going on than we ever suspected. All the precautions I took for his activation were unnecessary. I don’t want to give you any spoilers—it’s not my story to tell. I already sent the Excalibur to the Ascension so it could pick up Elizabeth and the others. They all need to be here and learn what really happened, all those centuries ago. I’ll tell you when they are near.”

Michael nodded and continued to sit by the water lulled by the tranquility of this place. It was so relaxing that he lay prone on the soft grass, watching as the lazy clouds floated unhurriedly above him.

He was so relaxed that he fell asleep.

***

The S.U. Space Station

Residential Level

“So, this is where you were hiding.” Elizabeth’s voice brought him to his senses.

He opened his eyes only to see her standing above him. “Hi, how did you manage to get here so fast?” Michael asked with a lazy smile.

“It wasn’t that fast; Max told me you have been sleeping here for a couple of hours. Everybody is already on the small level with that shiny overgrown cube. Come on, they are waiting for us,” she said and gave him a hand to get up.

They went back, using the same elevator, and in a few minutes joined Tyron, Pete, Al, and the others, who were standing close to that strange machinery, like a bunch of fans, waiting for their favorite show to begin.

“OK folks, gather around, we are ready to start,” Max said as Michael and Elizabeth approached the group.

They all congregated in the center of the room, in front of the big holo-screen. Michael noticed that the big memory cube, which was not here before, was now placed in the room, connected to the machine that housed the AI-core.

Max’s image appeared on the holo-screen and he nodded at them. “There will be some disturbing things you will learn today, and I need you to keep it together. It is going to be an unsettling story, and as I said earlier to Michael, it is not mine to tell. May I present Ision, the AI we rescued from the bottom of the Mariana Trench.”

The holo-screen split in two and the same middle-aged man he briefly saw before, appeared in the other half.

The man bowed to the entire group, and then faced Michael. “Leader Freeman, I am honored to meet you and your friends. As Max said, my name is Ision,” he stated in perfect English.

“Ah… pleased to meet you too, I am glad Max was able to… wake you up?” Michael answered, nodding his head.

The man in the holo-screen smiled. “I understand your confusion; all this is quite new to me too. When I woke up, as you say, I was quite disorientated and did not yet realize that I was an AI, or that so much time has passed since the procedure. For me, it felt as if it was only a moment,” he said sadly.

“Ision and I spent a month of compressed time, getting to know each other. I needed to get him up to speed, so to speak, as his AI-core was never activated before. You can imagine how overwhelming the experience was.” Max explained.

“Yes, without Max to guide me, I would still be wondering what was going on. One second, I am lying in the AutoDoc on the spaceship you named the Excalibur, getting the gestalt of my mind recorded, and in the next, I am in completely unfamiliar surroundings. I owe a great debt to Max for being there for me,” Ision replied.

“Can you tell us what happened? Who built the ship, and why were you and the Excalibur hidden in such a way, and for so long?” Michael asked.

“I can and will, but I must warn you, it is a long story and not a happy one. Some things in it will be quite familiar to you; the history of my people became part of your myths and beliefs. I am sorry in advance if it offends and challenges some of your religious dogmas; but what you know about us has been so distorted and twisted over time, it bears almost no resemblance to the actual events. It is understandable really; these legends have been for thousands of years passed down by word of mouth. Parent to a child, one generation after the other, every speaker changing one bit of it. Until the history of my people was unrecognizable from what actually happened. All I can promise you is that everything I am about to tell you is the truth.”

A holographic representation of Earth appeared in front of them, filling up space between where they were standing and the AI-core pedestal.

“Max has helped me to create a presentation of sorts, so you can see for yourself certain events. Some images are from my memory, and some are from the digital records we retrieved from the Knowledge-Vault, which is the name of the large memory cube you recovered from the Mariana Trench installation. Just one more thing before I begin, certain names and places that you are used to, sound quite different in my language, so for the sake of convenience I will use their modern equivalents.”

Everybody was focused on his words, like children awaiting a new exciting story.

“Max has updated me on recent human history, so I know that my origin will come as a surprise to you. You see, I am the last of my people; most of the others had been murdered or hunted to extinction. Yet, the memory of us remains, but only in legends that most of humanity does not even believe are real. You have most likely heard of my civilization and the name of my people, we were—the Atlanteans.”

Michael’s eyes opened wide on account of this revelation, and he could hear a few indrawn breaths from the others in the room.

“I know this is a bit of a shock to you since in recent centuries the interest in our legend fired up the imagination of humanity. Even the Greek philosopher Plato used our name in his works. Although, his writings were so removed in time from the events that ended our civilization, little of our story survived. Atlantis was never an island, and it was not located where most people theorized… it was, in fact—an oasis.”

He waved his hand and the holographic representation of the world before them slowly rotated, until it stopped with the image of the South Pole facing them.

“My home was on the continent you named Antarctica,” Ision declared in a silent room.

“But that is impossible!” Emma shouted. “Antarctica has been a frozen desert for millions of years.”

Ision nodded. “You’re quite correct Dr. Williams, it was frozen in my time too, except for one small part of it.” He pointed his finger at the hologram.

The image of the South Pole zoomed in on the Antarctica continent, getting closer and closer to the surface until one green speck could be seen in the middle of the endless expanse of ice and snow. The zooming stopped when the entire screen was filled with green, and only the edges were still painted white.

The green part of the map was mesmerizing and just about impossible. A fertile land filled with lakes and forests; the last thing one would expect to see on a frozen continent. Around the entire place, a mist arose, surrounding it.

“This was Atlantis,” Ision continued. “A geological miracle that enabled life to flourish in one of the most inhospitable and desolate places on the planet. Abundant geothermal lakes and hot springs melted the ice over time and created a constant microclimate that developed its unique flora and fauna. Who knows, maybe it would still be there if my ancestors never stumbled upon it,” he said with barely concealed pain.

“Our oldest legends say that our people moved from another land, crossing the endless ice. I now assume that it had to be a temporary ice bridge between South America and Antarctica; some of the oldest pieces of the primitive art that survived to my time showed that they rode giant animals with long tusks. There were probably domesticated woolly mammoths; few of your own archaeological finds and recreated skeletal remains I have seen, confirms that theory. The real reason for the voyage, or why they even chose such a dangerous direction, was lost in time. The stories we learned from our elders told us that it was a dangerous journey and that the majority of our people did not make it. Nevertheless, those that did found a magical land to call their home.”

Ision paused there and seemed as mesmerized as the rest of them, looking at the images of the hidden oasis.

“Atlantis was not very large, a little less than a thousand square miles, and was surrounded on all sides by great walls of ice. Watching the sunrise from beneath those ice blue mountains was one of my earliest memories; no picture could ever describe such beauty.”

Michael could see that even talking about it was hard on the man; being turned into an AI didn’t suppress his emotional responses. Ision’s eyes glistened as he was watching those images.

“I’m not sure how long my people inhabited our oasis before I was born, we were never very keen on measuring time, but I suspect it had to be at least a thousand years. We never left Atlantis, we were born, lived, and died there. Completely cut off from the rest of the world, with a strong conviction that the gods were kind to us; after all, they provided us with a perfect home. I was born there, close to thirteen thousand years ago.”

While Ision was talking, the holograms of Atlantis followed his narration. Images that no one has seen from the time untold, followed one after another. Michael and the others were awe-struck by beautiful places. Pictures of green forests and thermal lakes, animals, people, and the houses that looked like big A-frames, made of sturdy logs. There were paths through the entire settlement, paved with great slabs of stone. Around this small, enclosed oasis, ice cliffs that must have been miles high, stood in their blue splendor. It was a world out of magical tales.

“Our population was never great, and at the height of our recorded history there were barely ten thousand of us; over time, that number grew much smaller. The greatest tragedy we faced was that our children were often born with deformities, and died young. Now I know what terms like genetic diversity and mutational meltdown mean, but then it was the will of our deities. Even so, we cared for those that were unfortunate to be born with defects, and we loved them. Still, we were headed to genetic extinction, without even being aware of it.”

The images of afflicted people were shown on the holo-screen, and more than a few people in his avid audience flinched.

“Isolated as we were, war was an unknown concept to us. Somehow, all those aggressive impulses that afflicted humanity through the entire history were not in our nature, maybe because our children suffered so much. In this day and age, you would have called us pacifists; peaceful people who simply wanted to live their lives, not bothering anyone. And we would have carried in such a way until the last of us died… but such was not our fate.”

Ision paused in his story, taking a deep breath.

“Our numbers were less than one thousand when they came; our saviors and, in a way, our destroyers. We thought they were gods. This is how I saw them, with my own eyes, for the first time.”

A still image of a close community turned into a video taken from Ision’s perspective. These were his actual memories, carried to a digital form when his mind was uploaded to the AI-core. He was looking at the sky and a speck of color that was growing larger by the minute. It soon became apparent to Michael and the others that it was some kind of a spacecraft, descending from orbit.

In a few minutes, it was low enough that they could discern more details. The design lines were a little strange, but there was a striking resemblance to the style Excalibur was built on. Except, this spacecraft was a few times larger than Michael’s ship, yet with the same kind of writings on its hull Michael had previously seen when he entered the Excalibur’s bridge for the first time.

The spaceship landed close to the settlement, and many people came to stand close to it. There was no fear or panic in them, only curiosity. Even the children were present to see the new and strange thing that came into their world.

With a slight hiss, an opening appeared on the side of the ship and the metal ramp descended to the ground. A silhouette could be seen coming close to the exit, bipedal and looking quite human. Yet, when the creature finally exited the ship, not one person in the room could believe what they were seeing. There, standing before the silent Atlanteans was an image they were very familiar with, one Michael and the others had seen countless times since their childhood.

Standing there was… an angel.