A Civilization Destroyed

The cube raced along its rails toward CyberBio Systems. Its occupants: seven synthetic copies of a woman named Terrie, two dying twin children named Red and Ted, Paul the CEO of CyberBio systems and Jon Rishi its chief scientist rattled around as earth quakes rocked the ground around them.

Paul slid himself back into a corner and helped Terrie4 sit upright again and said, "It looks like the tunnels are holding up pretty good considering the stress, huh Jon?"

"Yeah," replied Rishi, "but I'm not surprised. There's a reason we let the picobots spend six years building the tunnels before we even brought people here. Carbon filament sheeting is damn strong."

The cube stopped nearly instantaneously causing its occupants to pile up in the front of the passenger area.

Rishi and Paul were being crushed by roughly three and a half Terries each as everyone struggled to reorganize themselves from a mass of bodies to a group of individuals.

"What the hell?" said Rishi.

"Sorry sirs and madams," said the translator, "I cannot go any further at this time."

Rishi looked out the front of the cube and saw the issue: about fifty feet ahead in the tunnel was the opening to the outside glowing with enough light to burn the skin right off their bodies.

"What's the temperature out there?" Asked Paul.

"Roughly six hundred degrees and climbing quickly," said the translator.

"I hope..." said Terrie2.

Terrie3 put her hand on Terrie2's shoulder and said, "we all hope..."

"Its okay underground, right translator?" Asked Terrie8.

"Subterranean temperatures vary from 17 to 51 degrees centigrade," replied the translator.

"That's survivable, right?" Asked Ted.

"Yes," replied Paul, "as long as people got underground, they should be okay."

"The real question is," asked Rishi, "how are we going to get to CyberBio?"

"We can make it," said Terrie2.

"That will destroy you," said Paul. "Definitely," added Rishi.

"It will destroy everything except our inner skeleton which can function without the biomass that surrounds it," said Terrie5.

"There is no point in getting there when the sun is up, you couldn't take Coren anywhere anyway."

Suddenly the cube began to move away from the tunnel exit. This had the effect of knocking everyone down again.

"Some warning would be appropriate," said Rishi.

"Sorry," the translator said cheerfully, "I have found another route to CyberBio systems. Paul I was forced to use your override password, I hope you don't mind."

"Of course," said Paul, "the escape tunnels. Translator, can the cube run in those?"

"According to my specifications I should be able to traverse them without trouble, they are the same size and made of the same material as these tunnels."

The cube stopped moving, slid sideways and then descended further into the planet.

"I didn't think cubes could think for themselves," said Red.

"Well," said Rishi, "in emergencies we give them extra abilities so they can better serve us. As far as I know these features have never been activated before."

The cube dropped a long distance and then changed direction again, this time moving northward. The tunnel was absolutely dark. Periodically a bright light would flash in front of the cube. Ted asked, "what's the flashing about?"

"Something in the way of the cube that has to be vaporized. In these old tunnels its not unusual for debris to be left over from some crawler crew that passed through before."

A few minutes later the cube came to a sudden halt knocking down everyone yet again.

"This is getting a bit ridiculous, don't you think?" said Terrie3 as she stood up and helped one of her numerous sisters stand up.

"Agreed," said Terry7 and Terry5 at the same time. "Damn, why are we still in sync?" They said at the same time.

Rishi looked at Terry5 and said, "what unique quality did she give you?"

Terrie5 looked at Terry7, then back at Rishi and said, "I have all the baseball statistics for every game ever played for all time in an extra reserve within my digital CPU."

Paul looked and said, "Really? Did she do that for me?"

"Yes." Replied Terry5. "She thought that by the time I was activated you'd be getting on in years and I could keep you company when I wasn't helping with my grandchildren and great grandchildren."

"Wow. She really did care," sighed Paul.

The computer spoke up, "There are biologicals a quarter mile ahead in the tunnel. I can't proceed any further at full speed without risking their lives."

"Biologicals?" asked Rishi. "What biologicals?"

"They appear to be human."

"How far are we from CyberBio?"

"About two miles," replied the translator.

Paul asked, "Can you approach them at a safe speed, they must be evacuees from CyberBio."

"Affirmative," said the translator. The cube began moving forward and as it proceeded along the tunnel a light became visible ahead of them.

They approached a crowd of people, the cube stopped and an emergency door on its front opened.

A crowd of people boarded and Coren De Salt said, "we're so happy you are here. That would have been a long walk."

Looking at the faces of the cube's occupants Coren spotted the first familiar face and exclaimed, "Jon Rishi! I thought you were dead!"

"Funny," said Rishi, "so did I and to be honest it seems like I'd be better off."

Coren smiled and said, "Would you do me the honor and explain to me why there are seven Terrie Rishi's in this cube?"

"Long story," replied Rishi, "They are not clones. They are artificial. However, they can be trusted. If it weren't for them we wouldn't have been able to power up the city."

The front door of the cube closed and it began proceeding toward CyberBio.

Coren said, "oh we don't want to go that way. There's nothing left back there. Everything above ground is gone."

"Everything?" Asked Paul.

"Yes, Paul, everything. And we barely made it out alive."

The translator stopped and reversed direction.

"Where should we go?"

"Lets get to the Senate," said Terrie2, "We have to get Coren in a position where she can establish her presidency."

"Agreed," said several of the Terries.

The translator sped up and made a sharp right turn into another tunnel which would lead them directly to the senate.

"Terrie," said Rishi.

"Yes dear," replied all seven Terries.

"Uh. Terrie2," said Rishi.

"Yes husband."

"Are you still linked to the planetary systems?"

"Yes, but all my spare cycles are being spent lying to the various abusers of the virus."

"What?"

"There are at least thirteen users trying to command the virus with various access codes."

The translator stopped and then shot upward as it announced, "ten minutes to the subterranean senate."

"Have you been able to identify them?" Asked Rishi.

"No," replied Terrie2, "but when Four is in proximity of them she'll be able to sense their transmitters and identify them for us.

"Good. We need to get control of the senate and get rid of those who work for Rubinic."

Jenny De Salt, Coren's daughter looked at her mother and said, "I must be really out of touch, because I didn't understand a word of what's been said."

"We'll have to fill you in at the senate building," said Paul, "right now just trust us when we say that Terrie4 will point out the traitors and promise to have them arrested."

Coren frowned and said, "That's a huge leap of faith. These are senators we're talking about. If I storm in there and start trying to arrest people there might be a rebellion against me. Why don't we play it cool for a while and see what happens?"

Terrie2 looked at Terrie4 and asked through her electronic link, "any activity?"

"No. She's clean. She doesn't even have any implants. But that doesn't mean we can trust her."

In the subterranean senate there was pure chaos as people vied for control of the situation. Senator Chide from Creole, the highest ranking senator present had the gavel and was striking it on the podium trying to calm the room down. He had been doing this on and off for hours as the senators attempted to guide their people remotely to keep them underground and alive and coordinate with the scientists who were trying to get the planet a safe distance from the sun and keep the surface of the formally dark side from getting even more scorched.

As he banged his gavel, his assistant walked up and said, "sir, our district is completely destroyed now. The planet is continuing to accelerate but they don't believe they'll be able to keep the exposure to sun light lower than an hour. That means surface temperatures will still hit nearly 600 degrees centigrade."

"Nothing will be left after a few rotations. Absolutely nothing."

"But we have the under city to live in. Most people should be okay if they made it here."

"Yes sir."

Suddenly the floor in the center of the senate dropped and slid open and a cube rose up through it. Its door opened, the stairway lowered and out walked the Speaker of the House.

Everyone in the room froze and couldn't believe their eyes.

"Is all of Congress here?" Asked Coren.

"Yes Mrs. Speaker," replied Senator Chide. "We escaped here some hours ago."

The full occupants of the cube spilled onto the senate floor and the cube descended into the floor, its crystalline roof becoming the floor of the senate.

"Okay, listen up people," said Coren. "I need an update and I need to know how we can feed the people who made it beneath the surface. Have you started planning any of this?"

There was dead silence and Coren knew that nothing had been done.