Earth: The Future is History (3 page)

Alexei: “I wasn’t present during the last
debriefing. In fact, I wasn’t present during any debriefing. And
considering that now you don’t answer only to Mr. Locke, I’m going
to ask you to explain a few things for me.”

The ten councilmembers, sitting quietly and
observing so far, now seem more agitated; they clearly don’t agree
with a civilian presence in their War Council, asking questions.
But Alexei doesn’t seem to even notice them.

Admiral Sterrow: “With all due respect, sir,
we simply don’t have the time to sit around conference tables. The
invasion has entered its most critical phase and with yesterday’s
events, I need to start coordinating…”

Alexei: “That’s exactly the point of this
meeting. We’re not so sure the current plan for this invasion is in
Earth’s best interest anymore, Mr. Sterrow! We, you and I, need to
decide what our course of action will be in the following
weeks.”

Somewhat annoyed, Admiral Sterrow doesn’t
hide his emotion while defending the orders given years ago:
“Earth’s best interest, sir? We’re doing this for Earth. This is
the culmination of a two-hundred-year mission. We’re here on a
two-year deployment, away from our families, risking our lives,
some of us never returning home, all of this because Earth lost its
capability to sustain itself, because we need access to new
resources, to a new planet. Please explain, sir, how is what we’re
doing here not in Earth’s interest?”

Alexei: “In due time, Mr. Sterrow.”

A military man his whole life, the Admiral
turns towards the President, not because he respects him, but
because his rank demands approval from his superior: “Mr.
President?”

President Locke, bored by the entire reason
of this meeting, answers with a tired, faded voice: “No point in
arguing with him, Admiral. Trust me, I know. Just… play along.”

Alexei: “Mr. Locke admires you, Mr. Sterrow;
he speaks highly of you. I want to assure you that your loyalty is
not in question. We all understand your dedication, and we thank
you for it. So how about this: I’ll start. I’ll tell you a little
history lesson and help you better understand what, and who you’re
fighting for.”

Admiral Sterrow: ”Sir, what is this, exactly?
I know very well what, and who I’m fighting for!”

Alexei: “I assure you, you don’t. You’ve been
a military man your entire life. Your parents, military as well?
You’ve lived a privileged life, Mr. Sterrow. I bet you’ve never
traveled outside the controlled borders. You’ve never seen Earth
for what it’s truly become, you’ve never seen your praised Alliance
for what it really is. Allow me to open your eyes, Admiral!”

Alexei turns around and addresses the entire
room: “You know your military history, no doubt. But what do you
know about the formation of the Civil Council and its research over
the years?”

Looking for a
change in pace, professor Noya decides to have one of her students
continue with the story, so she asks Filip to stand up again. Her
lecture today is different, carefully planned so that in the end
she can make a crucial point; a point that, if remembered at the
right time, might just make enough difference to break the cycle.
That is, if anybody lives long enough…

With a straight face, she turns to Filip, now
standing: “What do you know about religion, Filip?”

Filip, surprised to be chosen again, answers
her question: “Well… I know that while in ancient times it started
as a guide of sorts for what was generally accepted as “good moral
values” for people, it very quickly became just another form of
control, holding tremendous power over people’s thoughts and
actions. Of course, people didn’t see it that way back then. Blind
to its true purpose – the purpose it holds today – they fought for
the right to worship superhuman-like, all-powerful deities –
generally called gods – with many different names depending on the
doctrines they represented. Like so many things back then, religion
was also divided in hundreds of types, forms and sizes, with
different rituals, goals and leadership.”

Noya, analyzing Filip from top to bottom,
decides to intervene and continue the story: “Shortly after the
Last World War ended, the riots started and quickly evolved into
full-scale revolutions. It was during that time that religious
leaders saw a selfish opportunity to profit by expanding their
borders and increasing their following – the number of followers a
cult had was detrimental to its power. To gain more trust, they
started supporting the fighting in any way they could: dispatching
representatives to the front lines to aid the wounded and perform
rituals on the deceased; clothing, food and water shipments;
establishing supply lines to the most affected areas; rebuilding
torn settlements. They achieved their initial goal by proving
themselves to be an invaluable ally for the common people. But
after the fighting stopped, in exchange for their support they
started demanding a more decisive role in the new leadership being
formed across the globe. Some of them even demanded the unification
of all nations that believed in the same gods, ruled of course, by
“divine” leaders – this was unconceivable at the time. It was these
demands for more control that sparked even more hatred in a
population already sick and tired of fighting control – that is,
control that was not carefully monitored by the civilian
population. Although the religious structures were viewed by most
as an integral part of community, especially after their recent
proof of the good they could do for the common people, religions
themselves – or more accurately, the act of believing in any god or
higher power – had been slowly loosing popularity over the years.
Cult leaders were promoting their respective deities more than
ever; but it was normal, common, ordinary people that had fought
and bled and died in the recent wars; it was men and women that had
to fight against poverty and famine and violent, corrupt leaders;
men and women from all races and religions across all regions of
the globe, united by a common goal; it was human resilience that
ultimately led to stopping the fighting, not divine intervention.
People realized how similar they are, despite their differences,
despite what gods they believed in; and for the first time they
realized just how similar all their different beliefs are, how no
matter what god they worshiped… they all promoted similar higher
moral values. And it was just these moral values they decided to
preserve. So in an unprecedented moment, people demanded a
fundamental change in the holy structures across the globe: a major
shift, from worshiping deities to achieving more tangible results.
Of course, it took many years and several minor changes, but this
event laid the foundation of what we have today: a self-sustaining
organization simply known as “the Church”, equal in its function
across the entire planet; controlled by common people, sustained by
common people, with its only goal to help the common people.”

Noya, turning her eyes to the floor and
opening her arms, with a soft voice: “And finally… there was global
peace, not a single war on the entire planet.”.

Everyone in the room is silent.

But the moment doesn’t last long and Noya
quickly turns around and heads back to her stand. Picking her
tablet up and quickly scrolling over some notes, she lifts her head
and again addresses the students: “Wars… Sure, those ended. We
haven’t had another war in over two-hundred years. But peace…? That
didn’t last long, did it?”.

We expanded so much
in the past two hundred years: small towns grew to become vast
megacities filled by seamlessly interconnected buildings;
planet-wide transport networks emerged, connecting unending
production hubs to the green tops of the living areas; monitoring
stations spread in every corner of the land, keeping a close eye on
the unpredictable wildlife, tagging and monitoring all movement.
And yet we know so little about what happened before our expansion
started. Or the exact reason it was triggered. Or why at the same
time, the wildlife became increasingly violent, to the point our
very existence started to be threatened. We do know that around the
same time something happened here, in the mountains, something that
isolated this area from the rest of the world, something that won’t
allow our scanners to get any usable readings, something that
shifted and changed the terrain to the point it became so unstable.
We also know that all these events are connected; we just don’t
know how. Over the years we tried to get some answers, to explore
this mysterious land, but anything we sent inside never came out,
we never learned anything useful. Eventually we gave up wasting
resources on this pointless endeavor.

But I’m here now, trying to do what no one
else could. And surprisingly I’m still alive.

Last year something happened, something that
led to me being here: our planetary monitoring stations picked up
on what appeared to be a small asteroid burning up high in the
atmosphere. Its projected trajectory placed the crash site in the
center of this area. That seemed like a strange coincidence, but we
get hit by hundreds of small asteroids every year – they usually
simply burn up in the upper atmosphere and never make contact with
the ground; we didn’t think much of it at the time. Knowing where
it came from seems like important information now, but we never
built sensors to monitor beyond our atmosphere; it never seemed
like a priority with all the important things happening on the
ground…

Only days later, the tremors started: small
scale quakes, sometimes up to ten daily. Our scientists focused
their attention here, but without any way to look inside, all they
could do was to wait and observe the effect that rippled outside of
the isolated area. Even so, they were busy: just a month after the
tremors started, a strange, thick, dark fog started coming out. The
whole area was already covered in dense mist, so dense that we
couldn’t see anything past the second row of peaks – but this was
different, it almost seemed… unnatural. And when our scientists
analyzed it, five percent of its composition couldn’t be
identified. That’s when the rumors started… That’s also when we
focused all our attention to determining what was happening inside;
we started building new technologies to allow us any way to
penetrate what seemed like an impenetrable, invisible, intangible
barrier. One of these technologies started picking up strange,
previously unheard, metallic sounds originating from somewhere in
the center – and whatever was causing these sounds was not only
expanding, it was also accelerating its expansion rate.

The decision was made to go inside and
investigate.

We couldn’t send any tech; we tried many
times before but anything we sent in just stopped working after a
very short time. There is no physical barrier isolating this huge
area from the rest of the planet, so we can simply walk inside. And
over the years, some of us tried to reach inside and explore. Most
never came back, but those that did, mapped only a very small
portion of the outskirts, reporting increasingly uncontrollable
confusion the further inside they tried to reach.

I was contacted and began my training shortly
after; and they started researching a way to get me in and out
alive.

By the time our scientists developed the suit
I’m wearing – a biomaterial that grows naturally, combined with a
small lifeform found in the ocean, shaped in a specific pattern
with a hardened exoskeleton made from a rare resin; my suit isn’t
really a suit, it’s more like a living, breathing organism that
protects me, the only reason I can survive in here – the isolation
bubble around the mountains had already started slowly expanding.
We came to call this isolation bubble “The Dead Zone”, an area
where nothing known to us can survive; and we don’t even know
exactly why. A scientist theorized that the observed effects are
consistent with an unknown signal somehow interfering and
disrupting our brain functions… maybe. But that still doesn’t
explain why tech doesn’t work inside…

The lack of data allowed rumor and
speculation to flourish: from the destabilization of our planet’s
core to a new form of intelligent wildlife to creatures from
another planet. But rumors are just rumors until proven true or
false. That’s why I’m here, why my mission is so important. I must
find out what’s causing the Dead Zone to expand and how to stop it.
It’s crucial.

I haven’t moved today. After spotting the
anomaly in the valley below me, I decided to take my time and
analyze my options. I’ve entered the Dead Zone ten days ago and
haven’t seen any movement, any sign of life, no trees and no
animals, no structures, nothing, just rocks and snow and wind. And
with some distance still to cover before I reach the center of the
Dead Zone, I didn’t expect to find anything in this valley. But
something is definitely here. The wind is picking up the snow and
carrying it across the valley, except one small area nearby – it
looks like the wind is… going around it somehow.

I’ve spent enough time on this peak. Time to
start moving again.

I jump down the cliff and start moving
towards the anomaly. For some reason I find myself clenching the
rifle like my life depended on it. My rifle. What a false sense of
security it provides… Because our advanced weaponry doesn’t work in
here, they had to design for me something that more closely
resembles an ancient blunt weapon than a rifle – it’s basically a
long barrel and grip made from a strong resin, just like the
exoskeleton of my suit; it fires high pressure compressed gas
projectiles – it’s somewhat effective over short distances, but the
reloading time is terrible. It was interesting shooting physical
projectiles out of a long tube in training, but here, if some
unknown wild animal were to attack me, I’d be dead if I don’t
manage to kill it with the first shot. But a false sense of
security is better than nothing, so I grip the rifle tighter and
keep moving towards the anomaly.