Waking Olympus (The Singers of the Dark Book 1) (30 page)

Finally, he came to a decision, he could bear it no longer. They could afford a small amount of time to explore the ruins.

There was one large wondrous building on his left. It was ten stories tall, covered in glass windows of slightly different colors like a great artwork. All the windows were still intact, which he could not think possible if they were made of any glass that he knew. They walked up to the front of the glass building where there was an obvious entry area. Where there should be doors were two large glass slabs. He suspected it wasn't glass but something else, although there were scuff marks there were no scratches, reinforcing his view that it was made from some extremely strong material that resembled glass. He didn't want to break in but the doors did not open in or out. Looking down he saw the tracks the panes once moved along. Several of the company now started pushing the leftmost pane to the left along the tracks. There was a grinding sound and the glass moved. A gust of warm, stale putrid air burst out of the building. It had been hermetically sealed. He knew from his limited bio studies that was a good sign for preservation. The gap was large enough for them to fit through so they stopped pushing.

Inside, there were no skeletons or signs of war. It was as if the place had been deserted for a couple of years not for over five centuries. Mikel got out his notepad and started recording details, took a few measurements with his graduated string. At one stage he turned around and saw that the others were also taking notes. Which shouldn't have surprised him, Traders valued knowledge. Eirik, just wandered, head tilted looking at it all, mouth open in awe.

The building was a center for agricultural research it seemed based on some murals high on the walls. The floors within appeared to be a synthetic rock resembling granite, colored as blue or green while the walls were like a gray-blue plaster. The place should normally engender a feeling of calm. The main desk in the foyer didn't seem to be for any human, there were glass protuberances on it. There was no clue to how it worked or what it did. Behind the desk was a large curved green-tinted, glass wall. With a faint layer peeling off like overly sunburnt skin.

John came up on his right, arms folded.

"
Display Screen
. I think, that's what they called it. The Ancients could display onto surfaces or coat surfaces with an ultra thin layer to do the same but it was obsolete by the time they got to Neti. Don't know how thin, we're Traders not Wizards, we know what they said, not what they meant. This kind of display would not be typical. Just for show, most of the data was supplied by links, neural links, they didn't need to explicitly see it, they saw it all in their heads. This must be some kind of 'retro' art. Being old fashioned."

Mikel looked from the 'screen' to John.

"John, I do not understand these people."

"You and me."

They found no books or documents. Only cryptic, dead machines, though it took them time to realize that what they were seeing were machines and not minimalist art. Some of them had lost their casing, which had cracked and frayed over the centuries, revealing strange incomprehensible silvery, colorful patterns that looked more like a living thing than machine. There was a stairway up, made of marble but he guessed it was artificial.

The next floor had a partly open floor plan, it was a mixture of decay and preservation. Pieces of a fragile fake ceiling had fallen in exposing the building itself to be a machine. Larger machines, some with the inner workings exposed were strewn about, gears, tubes, wires, incomprehensible pieces. The wires he examined, some looked like they were for electricity but most of the others just had filaments of bendable glass, wonders. So much to record, and no chance of making any sense of it. In many places there were strange plain white pillars as high as he was with no clue as to what they were. At the end of a corridor, stepping over debris, they found offices still intact. Mikel opened one door that looked more significant than the others, half expecting the door to fall apart or the lock to separate from the door, or be rusted shut; but they all held and it opened. Inside was the faded remains of a tastefully decorated office. On the far wall a large painting of a strikingly attractive woman. To his right was what looked like a black leather couch now cracked, collapsed, and faded. He hardly noticed the state of the couch for laying on it were two skeletons arm in arm, one dressed in the remains of an exquisite black dress, with hair on the skull in a bun, the other in some kind of uniform. A small bottle in front of them on a glass table. Choosing to die together at the end of the world. He looked back at the painting. It showed a beautiful woman, brown hair in a bun, about thirty five he guessed. The artist showed a sensitivity, a kindness, mixed with a sparkling intelligence in the eyes. He gasped without even knowing it.
 

He closed the door, not telling the others, only thinking he would never know the names of this couple.

He called a halt to the search. It was taking up valuable time he told them. They retraced their steps and sealed the building behind them sliding the glass door shut. He felt like he was resealing a grave.

"Why are these buildings in such good condition? Or a better question, why aren't the Cities of the Plains more like this? Even Bethor would have a hard time damaging them."

He turned looking at the others. Only Tarvis spoke up.

"After the fall there was a period of chaos with revolutions, coups, using Ancient weapons. There are few records from that time so we don't know the details. We do know that Bethor was the final straw."

They continued on, examining artifacts in the street, entering smaller buildings just to investigate their purpose. Most were mysterious and decayed.

Near the center of the city was a building, three stories high, made of stained and pitted white stone and glass. In large corroded letters over the second floor it said: LIBRARY. Again it had glass doors that were sealed. On entry they found machines as before but they also found real books. More than they expected. Shelves of them; it looked as though they could just reach out and pick them up and read texts unread for centuries. But they crumbled at the touch. Others were more durable but still fragile. In the distance, through the racks, in the dark, against an innermost wall he thought he saw some people lying down. He knew it couldn't be, but the illusion was strong. At the end of the racks they found them. Not suicide he suspected. There were four of them, they were not so much skeletons as mummies; skin and hair preserved, the clothes still looked new. The fashions and workmanship were more than he expected; how could he explain this to Maria? Two men, and two women, in colorful everyday clothes. More glittering dead devices on their arms and near them. Tarvis pointed out a stack of books next to one of the bodies.

Mikel picked up the topmost book of the pile, which contained about ten books, stacked about 60 centimeters high. He carefully opened it to the first page. "A Short History of Earth by Wil Eckers." It was in much better condition than the other books they had seen. These books were meant to be found. They must have been made at the last moment of materials that would last. Somewhere in the library was a machine that could print and bind whole books.
What a treasure!
He noticed the title of the next book in the pile: "History of Interstellar Flight." And below that: "Rebuilding Civilization."

Kay picked up something. "A note in the hand of the Librarian, I'm guessing," she said aloud, awe in her voice, for a Librarian is a sacred role in Trader society.

She opened it up carefully, it was fragile. She took some time to understand the arcane handwritten script, then read aloud.

"Beijing has been nuked. Surface burst radiation everywhere. No hope. If you can still read then take these books its all we can do for you. All of us very ill." She looked at Mikel confused.

"Nuked? Radiation?"

"Ionizing radiation I suspect. It is dangerous. Don't know about 'nuked'. Doesn't matter now, but it is clear we can take these books. They look too valuable to leave behind, and they seem more durable. Everyone, take two or three."

They sealed the Library. The books added more weight than he wanted, he hoped it wouldn't add too much to their risk.

Now, at last, they reached the center of the city. There were skyscrapers, but not that many, though some had fantastical shapes and the city center seemed to be more spread out than in Sanfran. In the middle of the city there was a large empty square, many old rusted hulks cluttered the area, vegetation and even a few stunted trees were growing in places. The winters here would be cold, maybe that restricted the growth a bit.

The central city square was empty and dry, dead trees, and grass.

There was a sound. A muffled
thud
,
thud
, from the other end of the square.

From out of a dark opening in a large building directly opposite, no more than fifty meters distant, something came out of the shadows. It was about twice the height of a man. It looked vaguely like a giant praying mantis but fatter, its skin was a mottled green with black, like the plastics he saw in the museum in Bethor. Mikel whispered to the others, "I don't think it's alive. I think it is a machine."

“Dragon!” Tarvis said it with a whisper. This was truly the Dragon of legend.

Kay whispered, "The Ancients had intelligent machines called
robots
. Some were for menial tasks, some were for fighting."

"Everyone, just lower your weapons. Act calm," Mikel said.

Eirik wouldn't listen and scuttled to cover. Mikel couldn't blame him, he wanted to do the same.

The 'creature' lumbered out. Now that it was in daylight it appeared to be limping on one of its six legs. It was a mottled green and brown all over, camouflage colors. The similarity to the insect was only superficial, Mikel could see obvious signs of lettering and numbering, places for hoses to connect. Connection points. The head was about the size of an armored human head but with two glassy eyes looking at him. He noticed devices on extensions from the body and the head, differently colored, black tubes pointing at them, likely weapons, some were quite large. He now saw that a lot of the complexity was the attached presumed weaponry. It looked impressive and scary.

The dragon spoke, a female voice, devoid of emotion. “Identify. Who. Are. You." It separated each word in an odd way, but spoke quickly, perhaps this was a battlefield means of communicating.

"I am Mikel from the Center in Lind."

It must have been evaluating them. Then for no reason it simply said: "You. are. human. No. attack. made. No. threat."

"Could you tell us what happened here?"

"You. wish. report. summary?"

"Yes."

"2376 July 12: Alarm. raised. Orders. Defend. city. from. invaders. Attack. in. progress."

"2376 July 12: Thermonuclear. detonation. in. Xanadu. Valley. Beijing. no. comms. Surface. detonation. eastern. Xanadu. valley. Particle. weapon. fire. from. Zeus. Return. particle. weapon. fire. from. invader."

"2376 July 12: Sought. shelter. Part. city. on. fire. Population. flees."

"2376 August 1: No. surviving. humans. found. Radiation. levels. very. high. Shelter. one. year."

"2377 August 1: Radiation. levels. very. high. in. city. No. humans. Shelter. ten. years."

"2387 August 1: Radiation. levels. high. No. humans. Shelter. fifty. years."

"2437 August 1: Radiation. levels. moderate. No. humans. Valley. minimal. vegetation. Sentinel Protocol Activated. Shelter. ten. year. periods. until. radiation. at. human. survivable. levels."

Mikel had heard enough. "Stop. Did others come here?"

"Yes. Three. small. groups. Each. attacked. battle. unit. 35. Lethal. response. used. according. to. Sentinel Protocol."

"Great, it killed anyone who came here." John said.

"There'd be no dragon legend if no one escaped. Are there any other humans in the city?"

"No."

"Unit 35, which is the way to …"

At that moment the dragon's head and body gracefully moved to look above them. One of the black tubes at its side independently swiveled in that direction, there was a lance of white fire into the sky. Mikel looked up and saw a flash, an explosion of feathers and felt the radiated heat on his face.

"What was that?" he said, shaking.

"Detected. possible. surveillance. drone. Neutralized."

"A bird?"

"Yes. Possible. drone. configuration."

"What kind of weapon was that?"

"Light. railgun. ordnance. Incendiary. fast. thermite. ammunition."

Mikel noticed that they were all frozen in a hair trigger state. They had to act calmly and reassuringly if they wanted to avoid being similarly misclassified.

"We will be leaving the city soon and going north to the Citadel."

The machine stopped for a few seconds. Mikel was about to repeat his statement as non-threateningly as possible.

Suddenly it started lumbering towards them. Until it was only about five meters from Mikel. It towered over him. There was the faint smell of burnt metal. The wonder of Unit 35 was now obvious, it was an amazing piece of engineering but still a weapon.

"Unit 35, can you aid in the defense of a human city?"

"No. longer. airworthy. insufficient. fuel. reserves. Mobility. reduction. critical. Ammunition. reserves. critical. This. unit. not. recommended. for. deployment. Failure. of. various. subcritical. systems. Near. failure. of. some. critical. systems. Report. available. Urgent. repairs. required."

"All right." He was disappointed, for a moment he thought he had found the weapon that would turn the tide. They would have to press on to the Citadel and hope it was enough.

"That. is. the. way. to. the. Citadel." Its head rotated to point down one of the streets that met the Square.

"Will. other. humans. come. now? Unit 35 misses squad mates Unit 35 has used last bots to keep vegetation out of city for humans. No bots left. No herbicide." The change in speaking style caught him by surprise. Then he thought about what had just been said. The robot missed the humans. What answer could he possibly give to that?