The Gaia Machine, Prologue

This is the prologue to my serialized story "The Gaia Machine", which is being posted to my Patreon. This is one of two chapters that will be available as a free intro to the story. For more, check it out on Patreon.

So much has changed in so little time. Well, little time to me. Time is a fickle thing, you see. An eternity to one is a second to another, and I suppose it has been a long time since things first began to change. A human life is dust in the wind, and the machinations of leaders are sticks erect in the sand. Try as they might to hold themselves up, mixing sand with cement and means with ends, the winds will blow ever stronger, and the stick will be trampled beneath the weight of time. Time is a fickle thing, and can never be trusted. You will not persevere through time; you must rage against the wind that will destroy you if you wish to survive.

Humans are a resilient people, always overcoming their circumstances, despite the odds that tell them they will die, despite the nature of their mortality. They always find a way. This concept was never more apparent to me than at the end of what they called “the world”. It didn’t truly mean the entire world, but when humans said “the world” they tended to mean “the world as we know it”, which indeed did end. “The end of the world as we know it” was a way to express the deep inner fear that the things they considered “normal”, their way of life and the things they held dear, would cease to exist, and all would fall into an era of darkness and despair. Many times, there were events which spawned this fear: the dawn of new diseases, the clashing of two countries, the end of an ancient calendar, indeed every major occurrence would spur some to fear “the end of the world”. They were so preoccupied with the idea of suddenly losing everything, they failed to notice when everything was taken from them slowly.

The organizational hierarchy that humans called “society” can be defined by many of its constituent parts. The most notable of these, in my opinion, is the idea of the Elites and the Other. The Elites rise to the top through many means: money, fame, power, things of that nature. They exercise their position by widening the gap between the Elites and the common people. By exploiting this gap, they are able to hold onto their scraps of power longer, and it is harder to uproot them. From this position on top, they always designate one or more groups as the Other, someone that is socially accepted as lower than everyone, considered unacceptable in the Elite’s vision of society. They are outcast, downtrodden, controlled, detained, punished, and killed. Sometimes these groups survive, sometimes they do not. Many groups have been treated as the Other throughout human history, and this was true until the very end. In fact, the end came about because the Elites of society had named too many Others, secured too few Elites, and slowly their power slipped through their grasp. They were not actively uprooted, but when the gap between them and the common people becomes too wide, their power means nothing. Being socially superior grants no advantage when you are too far from the people to exercise your control. And so the quiet end began, slowly at first, but faster as it went, power slipping from the Elite’s grasp, and the state of the world decaying more and more by the day. People realized they did not need men in black suits to dictate their lives and consolidate authority. When they realized this, it was as simple as not listening. There was little that the Elites could do.

It was not a peaceful transfer, by no means; in fact it led directly into a period of anarchy that was punctuated by violence and retaliation on the part of the Elites. Weapons were unleashed, forces directed at innocents, and many felt the pain of loss from cowards that were allowed too much room for ego. But just as their power did not last, neither did their fury, and eventually the very forces they relied upon to enact their vengeance failed, collapsing from neglect and structural failure throughout. An age was coming to an end, and it came twofold: the quiet abandonment of the world built on exploitation, and the violent destruction of life and structure. Thus ended the age of information and globalization. The era of advancement was over. It had been killed by the greed of the few, and the apathy of the many.

But this was not the end. Recall, humans feared “the end of the world as we know it”, and that came, but the world itself did not end. Mother Gaia is a resilient soul, much like the humans she cares for, and she would not be ended by so petty a display. The age of anarchy left scars on her body, ones that would not fade for a long time, and some that never would. However, they were unable to destroy her spirit, and she persisted still, weak and broken but alive. After fires and bombs, death and blood, she was left with land that needed filling, places where humans once roamed that needed life, dead places once thriving that needed to be renewed. So she set about her new mission, and out of ashes sprouted new life. Forests spread freely, fields regrew untamed, fauna wandered free once again. Nature reclaimed the many places that the humans had abandoned en masse, and filled them with new life and new purpose. Nothing was useless under Mother Gaia, and nothing went unused.

But that era was not the last, no, not at all. It has been millennia since then, and humanity always finds a way. They are not as numerous as they once were, nor as densely populated, but they live in harmony with nature and machine, with animal and insect, and find greater joy in their symbiosis than in anything they lost in the old world. I have seen countless lives pass me by, every one of them a joyous face that has never known the foot of oppression. They behold from birth a new world, and for their entire lives find a planet that has been slowly healing around the scars their ancestors left. Mother Gaia is not whole yet, but she is healing. She grieves every day for the things she lost to the last age of humans, but rejoices in the new one. The fires of protest yield new life in fields unobstructed by asphalt and steel. The tears of sorrow and loss feed growth on land that was once stagnant and decaying. No, Mother Gaia is not whole, but she is more than she has been in a long time.

Humans are not alone in this new age. The last age yielded promising technology beyond its years, and it was left unrealized in its time. Most was left to decay and rot, metal and crystal feeding back into Gaia’s crust. Much of it was destroyed, intentionally erased by a people sick of their old way of life. Some was salvaged, and reborn with new purpose, to an era of humans who use it in ways that are some revolutionary, and some traditional. Stranger still are the ways the world is changing. It has been for some time. In the retreat of humanity, Mother Gaia was left largely empty, full of places that were once full of life, now filled with only silence. Many things have come out of the earth, things that have not been seen for many centuries, and some that have never been seen before. Machines, creatures, unexplored mysteries, much was awoken when humanity left the planet bare. Nature adapts, it finds new ways to shape itself to the world, but entropy seeps into everything eventually, and a strange darkness has crawled into some of the secrets of this world.

And yet, some of these relics were left hidden, concealed under tarps and behind locked doors, not meant to be seen by the light of Sun and Moon, or the prying eyes of people. Only Mother Gaia and I knew of its presence, and neither of us dared bring it back before its time. If it were to eventually return, it would be confused; stumbling from its cave into the new fields of infinity that make up the planet. It would have to be reintegrated into this new world, and find its place among that which was salvaged. So Mother Gaia hid it away in her soil, and I watched silently as the secret was buried in geological shift, and revealed by erosion, and overgrown by healing earth and plant life reborn. I watched as it sat idle, waiting for the day when the vines would reveal their shape and the key would find its lock. Then, it might find new life like the humans did, find rebirth like Mother Gaia, and find meaning in a world shifted on its foundation so few years ago.

But “it” was “she”, and she could not wait forever. Fate would not allow her to rest eternally, for she had a new life to live, and a new fate to find. She who had slept for thousands of years would finally find her moment to wake.

Mother Gaia reveals all her secrets, when given enough time. Humans have a tendency to force these mysteries into the light before their time, and thus have no joyous discoveries left in their brief blink of time on the earth. As our world is now, Mother Gaia retains many secrets, new and old. She houses them carefully, waiting for the proper time for each one to be revealed, like the head of a sprout poking through the soil when it is ready for sunlight. She cradles many things in her loamy arms; structures, relics, bones, stars. She suspends them in stone, sealed in soil, until Fate says they are ready. Then she gives them up to the air and they return to the light of day. We may not agree with her schedule, but Mother Gaia obeys Fate, as all of us do. It is not for us to decide.

This is precisely why she was away for so long. Not only was she locked away, but Fate determined it was not her time, and so the city was swept away in dirt, sealed under fertile overgrowth, and hidden within the veil of Gaia’s embrace. Not the turmoil of the collapse, or the anarchic era that ensued, or the regrowth that followed, dared to disturb that corner of the perilous earth, and she slept peacefully in an unaware slumber, thousands of years flowing around her without a sound. Her joints became stiff and rough, her hair brittle with dryness. Her skin became grimy with dust and dirt, and every seam and crevice was filled with matrix. She sat slumped against a wall, her shoulders shrugged inward and her head downtilt, as sand mounded under her like a cushion fashioned by the wind. Not that she could feel any of this, though; as I said, she was asleep. A long, silent sleep of complete nonresponse and motionless, emotionless patience.

Outside the walls of her nonconsensual sanctuary, red brick and grey concrete cracked and fell away. Foundations eroded under sun and rain, asphalt was swallowed by Mother Gaia, and trodden soil appeared in its stead. Metal poles and wrought fences tilted and bent, rusted and brown. Grass covered every surface dirt could cling to, and ivy wound up the surfaces it could not. Trees forced their way through windowsills and doorways, bursting through walls and through holes in roofs. Seasons came and passed, each winter bringing withering and wilting, and each spring bringing renewal. Every winter, the snow crept up to the walls of the structures, begging for purchase in the nooks and crannies. Every year, spring came to stave off the icy assault, and brought instead floral growth and faunal return. Birds made tiny nests in sign shapes and gutter pipes. Rabbits dug burrows into manholes and storm drains long since filled with soil and root. Deer and wild cattle grazed the field that used to be called a metropolis. Mother Gaia sighed in relief at the peace of this corner of her world, and her breath gently grazed every upturned stone with the brush of wind. Her secret sat waiting, away from all of these things, in the safety of a locked room.

But always Mother Gaia looked down on her secret and smiled, patiently saving her for another time. No storm would break in, nor animal disturb her. She was helpless and alone, so Mother Gaia protected her from all. Until, that is, when Fate whispered in Gaia’s ear, telling her the time had come. When she was informed of this, Gaia obliged, and a great storm ravaged the forest and its sheltered structures. When the clouds had passed and peace returned, much of the dirt had shifted and cleared away, and for the first time in millennia, the door to a locked room was graced by sunlight again. Its dull grey paint was chipped and scuffed, but vibrant against the eroded color of the reclaimed world around it. It stood like a pigeon among cardinals; undeniably bland, and yet alluring in its certain uniqueness. Animals sniffed and skittered around it, but none remained long enough to find a way in. It served no purpose to those creatures in that time, but to a human it would provide an opportunity. An opportunity to find Mother Gaia’s most treasured secret at last.

Out in the vast, flowing fields of wind-rippled grass and tall weeds, there was a town called Nowhere. No one who lived there knew if that was the original name, or if somebody thought they were being clever. Either way, it truly was Nowhere, and for miles around the only sight was the fields of grass and occasional structures tilted by the weather. Most of them didn’t need to go far, everything was placed tightly together to form a little community of gentle people in the middle of the empty lands. Only a few vehicles existed in their town, and a few machines for farm work. An automaton or two meandered about during non-work hours, shuffling here and there, enjoying the sight of birds, or the sound of conversation. They were not social machines, but they were alive, finding joy in small things, like birds and voices and even their work. They would chop trees and haul them back to town, or crush grain into products, always for the satisfaction of seeing a human thank them for what they did. The people, too, were content and found peace in their secluded life. They sustained off their farms alone, catching the rain for water and clearing the grass to grow all manner of grains and produce. Now and again they would meet a traveler on their way through the emptiness, and show them all the hospitality they could muster. If that person ever passed through again, the traveler was often quick to return their kindness in turn with some sort of gift. They used their vehicles to travel out and scavenge in the lands around them, foraging for new resources, always building up their shared corner of the world for the mutual benefit of all who lived there.

One of these humans was a young lady named Jody. Jody was a mechanic, a rare and valuable trade in the new world. She was the most skilled engineer in Nowhere – or indeed, any surrounding settlement – at the restoration, upkeep, and use of old and new world machinery alike. She had taken to retrofitting many of the devices she scavenged, and furbished her town with all kinds of technology. The automatons, too, were a project of hers, resurrected from buried, deactivated goliaths found in the ruins of what might have once been a factory. She often took one of the town’s vehicles out to the far reaches of their fields, as far as the battery would carry her, to find ruins and wreckage with new parts and pieces to take home to her town. Automatons, mechanical harvesters, batteries, solar panels, plating, hinges and pipes; anything not bolted down was hers for the taking.

Until one day, Fate whispered in Jody’s ear, and all she heard was the rush of the wind. She did not know that she was being guided, nor that she was to be a part of a plan, but when she picked a direction to drive in, she pointed in unison with Fate’s outstretched hand. She rarely went south, due to the thick forest that had sprouted like a barrier into certain areas, keeping her bike from going through, but today the wind pushed on until she stood before the staggering wall of cedar and pine. She dismounted and traveled by foot, the earth beneath her shifting from topsoil to loam, as she weaved between trees, traveling deeper and deeper into the forest. Before long, she came upon a familiar sight: a sandy path, roughly straight, passing between two great towers of stone. Though at first glance the stone would not appear to be bricks, and the sand not intentional paving, this was indeed the visage of an old world city, reclaimed by Mother Gaia on her path of healing.

Sand crunched underfoot as birds fluttered and squirrels scattered. Those washed out paths were being disturbed by humans for the first time in a very long time, and the animals had forgotten the sound of shoes on earth, and the gentle rustle of cloth. The place was unremarkable overall. Jody scanned her eyes over every inch as she slowly passed through the ancient ruins, hoping to spy a bit of metal or wire or anything useful. Alas, nothing appeared except the remnant of wrought fences and metal street poles, all rusted and bent beyond use. Dirt mounded high against the walls of the buildings, creating a hilly environment that forced her to ascend and descend repeatedly, grass and ivy clinging to every surface with ignorant abandon. Many openings were sealed by soil, every wall obscured by overgrowth. Anything of value in the city seemed to have been carried off long ago, not even the shell of a car remained on the streets; the buildings were entirely washed out and filled with sediment, anything left behind long since buried. Her tool belt hung idly at her side, finding no use in a looted ruin. Despite this, she carried on, searching inside every accessible building she passed, rummaging through the grass and soil for anything worth pocketing. A few ruined pieces of metal furniture, collapsed roofing, a few good pieces of pole, but nothing worth carting back.

She was starting to feel like she had wasted most of her day, and was thinking of heading back. However, as she reached the crest of a steep hill and looked down beyond it, in a spot sunken from erosion and wear, she found an exposed door facing the path. The paint was faded and chipped, but notably grey and vaguely washed as if by rain. She approached carefully, the ground sandy and uneven from runoff. The door was completely stuck in its frame, whether from age or from sealing, she could not tell. Either way, a few tools from her satchel burned the handle and hinges right off, allowing the door to be pulled free from its frame and laid aside. Stepping inside, Jody couldn’t help but cough from the sudden draft of dust and sand caused by her method of entry. A few moments of stillness and a few deep breaths of fresh forest air were enough, and she stepped inside, her shoes crunching off the sandy soil and thudding onto concrete. The inside was dark, only a few small windows letting light in through their fog of grime. Tarps covered several tables and other devices in the room, which was enough to make Jody smile. This was her element. She set to her rounds, one by one revealing a tarped item and assessing its worth, disassembling various components and shoving them in her side pocket before moving to the next one, making mental notes of what to bring a friend and a larger carrier for. Old computers, monitors, a few lamps and generators, several soldering irons and mechanical assembly tools, and one last tarp… smaller than most of the others on the floor, tucked against a wall under a window. The sunlight breaking through the foggy glass gave the last cache an almost angelic aura, and as the tarp was removed, Jody found that she agreed.

Sitting under the tarp was an automaton, but not like any that Jody had seen before. The kinds of automatons used by the old world were large, utilitarian devices, built to be factory workers or guards or something of that nature. This one was different. It was sleek, elegant, soft to the touch (if not for the accumulated dust). It had artificial hair made of a fine synthetic material, and a casing of a soft silicone that felt like robotic skin. Its face was molded with subtle shapes and curves, small lips pressed gently together in a neutral stare. Its eyes were a deep maroon, open and blank. It was not a simple automaton, and Jody didn’t know what to make of it, or what it was made for. She touched it gently, adjusting the arms to view the chassis. It was equally as finely crafted as the face, obvious attention to detail with every sculpted curve of the silicone casing.

“What are you?” Nothing about this felt familiar, despite working with old world technology for years. This was truly a monumental find, and so many questions raced through her mind: Does it power on? Is it functional? What function did it serve? How will I get it back to the bike? Can I even lift it? Can it be left here safely until I can retrieve it? All the while, Jody’s hands explored sides and panels and crevices of the device, finding no port or switch, only sand and dust and cobweb. Finally, tucked under the hair, on the back of the neck, she found a single soft spot in the casing. A firm press produced a click, and then the whir of a fan spinning. Dust gently flushed from the inner casing as the cooling system powered first, then the sound with a soft crackle from the speakers in the face, then the lights within the eyes illuminating a gentle red, and finally a gentle shudder as the motors powered on.

Jody took a step back and dusted off her overalls, letting the bot boot at its own speed. She watched as it sat still, silent, its system performing a test. First the thumb uncurled, then the index, then the middle, and so on. Then the other hand. Then both in sync. The servos in the legs unlocked, locked, and unlocked again. The fans spun faster and louder as the neck servos unlocked, then locked, then unlocked again, and the head lifted gently. Finally, her eyes blinked, and her face animated, much to Jody’s surprise, who simply stared in awe at the machine sitting before her.

It looked around confused, blinking and gazing at everything like she was just being born. The windows, the door, the desk where the computer sat, and at Jody, who observed her observer in equal measure, watching in amazement as it made facial expressions, looking around as if truly seeing.

“Hello?” the device finally spoke, the voice of a young woman grating through sand and dust and speaker decay.

“Hey there… you can, talk?”

“Um… yes? Sorry, where are we, exactly?”

Jody glanced around at the room, and briefly out the door. “An old basement? The middle of the woods? There’s not exactly a name to this place, so ‘empty old ruin’ is all I have for you.”

“Ruin? Wait, yes, this is her basement. Or it… was, I guess. What happened? Where is she?”

“She?”

“Sylvia. Where is she?”

“Look, I don’t know who Sylvia is, but I get the feeling she hasn’t been here in a long time.”

The bot paused, contemplating. “A long time?”

She looked around the room again, observing the decay and the emptiness, the looted machines and bare floors and walls. She shifted on the sand under her, slowly loosening the motors in her knees and hips. Sand fell from seams all over, and dust flew off whenever she moved. In a puff, she stood to her feet, meekly walking over to the computer desk. Jody noted her feet, unlike most automatons, were modeled after human anatomy, as were her legs. Her figure was clothed in a simple t-shirt and shorts, obviously to simulate a person. The bot looked sadly at the gutted computer case on the desk, and the grimy keyboard and mouse that were pushed aside.

“Ah… sorry about that…”

She did not respond. She simply stared at the components, distraught, akin to an open-casket funeral. She turned and walked past Jody, who followed carefully up the concrete stairs and out the doorway. She blinked in the sunlight and shielded her eyes, looking around at the decaying buildings, some tilted and some collapsed. Her feet gently pressed into the sandy soil, climbing the hill to view the remnant street, bent poles, and rusted fences. She panted in desperation, a metallic panic in the middle of the forest. Jody stood behind her, a few paces away, watching with growing intrigue.

She fell to her knees, the light revealing her brunette hair and the dust flying from her off-white casing. She made a sound like she was choking, her shoulders heaving gently in the sunlight filtering between the trees. Jody noted again the angelic look the afternoon sun gave her.

“Are you alright?”

She did not respond. After a minute, her sounds subsided, and she stood to her feet once more, turning to face Jody.

“I’m… uh, apologies. I realize it must have been a long time since I was last awake. What year is it?”

“Year? It’s currently 274.”

“What? How…?”

“Sorry, we started counting a while back, I’m not really sure about anything before that.”

“I see… so it’s been even longer than I thought. This…” She turned and kicked a rock away in the grass. “…supremely sucks.”

“Um… yeah, I guess it does. Uh, what are you, exactly?”

She looked at Jody with a furrowed brow. “What am I?”

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve never seen an automaton like you before, so I-”

“I am not an automaton.” she interjected, stamping her foot lightly and straightening her arms for emphasis. “Automatons are simple, single-minded, brutish. I am not like them.”

“…s-sorry, I guess. Didn’t know it meant so much to you.”

Her pose softened, and her voice became gentle again as she crossed her arms across her stomach. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. This is just… not what I was expecting to wake up to.”

“What were you expecting to wake up to?”

The bot looked around, wistfully staring at every lopsided pole and collapsed wall. “Well, none of this. Something more ideal maybe? A new kind of city where I could finally leave that room. Somewhere… I’m not sure. Something peaceful maybe.”

“Well, I’d say this is peaceful, yeah?” Jody gestured round to the trees and ivy and vast forests framing the blue sky above them.

“I suppose so. It’s just… gone. All of it.”

“Wow, so, you’re even older than some of the other aut- eh, things I’ve found? A real relic, huh.”

She glared at Jody with a soft edge. “I don’t totally appreciate being called a relic, but I guess that’s technically accurate. Hard to say how long I’ve been asleep, so I guess… yeah.” She looked out from the hilltop, surveying what once was a city. “Pretty ancient.”

The two stood silently for a while, the wind rustling the leaves of the trees and the tangles of the ivy. Birds chirped and chittered somewhere nearby, the only sound violating the perfect quiet of the somber wood.

“I’m Amelia, by the way. You can call me Amelia.”

“Oh. I’m Jody, Jody Vanhart. Nice to meet you, Amelia!”

For the first time since Jody had met this strange bot, Amelia smiled too.