The Troll

As I cruised the asteroids in search of precious metals much needed by our industrialised society based on depleted Earth I noticed one would flash with stunning brightness along with a burst of static on the near field radio. The flash was periodic. I observed over time and saw it had a pattern. It would blast out the light and static for a time then go quiet. Almost as though it had something to say but no one was listening. Being pressed for time to meet my quota I couldn't investigate but I did mark the asteroid in the spatial tank for later attention but didn't bother claiming it.  The tank is a combination four dimensional map of near space with x, y and z coordinates with time as the fourth, communicator console, hologram display age personal recorder. I moved on following the faint whine of the metal detectors that stretched their fields out in front of my single ship.

Questing on and on it was several days before the detectors groaned with the tone that they'd found something interesting, a metal on their configured list of desirable elements. I turned on the Strebor analyser and spun the ship over its axis giving a quick blast on the drive both to slow me down and to hit the rock with charged particles for the Strebor to measure. Quickly spinning about again I aimed the Strebor probe towards the rock. As the blast hit home the Strebor did is thing. Call me mental but the thing always seemed somehow happy when there was a rain of particles to observe the dance. Squinting at the screens I read the information displaying with the spectral graph, a mixture of lithium, beryllium and mercury with some traces of other elements. This was a great one. This one would give me some serious pocket money.

Warming up the spatial tank I marked the rock and put in my claim to identify the rock as mine. Of course it takes a while for the claim to be transmitted, processed and received even at light speed. Once again I spun the ship and gave a longer blast on the drive to stop me alongside the rock while I waited. This is always a calculated gamble. Stopping in space relative to another object is costly in fuel. Sometimes more costly than the worth of the rock.

I grabbed a bite to eat and some coffee and pondered over the most recent news feed from Earth reporting on all the trivial problems back home. It was one of those problems that had me out here hurling through the void. I didn't want to be home. It was too easy to be found there. No privacy. How gratified would Orwell feel had he known his dream of 1984 was merely the beginning.

Finally I got a response from the tank. Unexpectedly there were two messages, one that congratulated me on my claim and told me which space dock to transport my rock to for processing and a priority 1 warning message. This was a little unusual, well ok, completely out of the ordinary, so much so it had never happened to me before.

I flipped my hand into the icon for the P1 and the message opened, it was from space command. The message was very terse and simply told me to not approach the object I had noticed earlier in the trip under penalty of no dock. No dock was essentially a death sentence, it meant you would be refused docking rights everywhere in known space. This seemed totally fucked up that I'd be warned off with such a harsh penalty over a rock I'd only marked not even claimed. Straight away I decided that I'd need to quietly take a look at that rock sometime. I'd always had a bit of a problem with authority. It was one of the other reasons I was out here alone.

I suited up and went outside into the jet black nothing of space and tethered the rock to my tow points. Job done I had time to pause and simply look at the stars and planets. I always did this, it made the hardness of the mining life worthwhile. Seeing just how small and insignificant we really are when compared to everything made being in the can of a ship bearable, because you couldn't see out. You could be happy in that small space simply because you couldn't see more.

Going back in I unsuited, carefully checking all the parts and stowing them neatly. You had to be neat in space or you'll quickly die. I scanned the board and seeing everything was ok I transferred the dock coordinates into the drive computer. I checked the promise given for the rock and saw there was a fast delivery bonus - enough to pay for heading there via overspace. I finished programming the drive and kicked it in the guts. The mind rending jerk marked the transition into overspace. This was the real reason there were no ports in my ship, in overspace there is nothing, lots and lots of nothing. It isn't possible for humans to experience nothing and not go insane.

Dragging my rock to the processing dock was uneventful. Just prior to arrival the drive dropped out of overspace near the dock. and I guided the ship to the arbiter that took the rock from my tow system freeing me to dock my ship and go inside for a little hard earned booze. No pilot was ever drunk in space, to much death to be had but in dock it's anything goes. My usual plan was booze, a meal that didn't come out of my shit hold, a bath then some nice young thing for a bit of fun.

After a few days I'd had about as much company as I could handle. I went back to the port and paid my fees. Entering my ship I checked that the store had loaded my usual order and that my fuels were full. Time to go. I headed out following a course that would take me back to the curious rock while passing right through the belt in search of more bounty. I found a few small rocks not worth towing in, I launched them to dock using the magnetic canon. They'd get there eventually. My launch computer plotted their trajectory and velocity into the tank so everyone else could avoid them. Ships drive always worked out their path to avoid the flying chunks.

All mining pilots knew how to kill the auto position reporting so we could move less than legal stuff around the system. I configured my agent to report I was stationary and smelting a rock then I went into overspace and visited the flasher. On arrival I dropped out of overspace and stopped alongside relative to the rock. The Strebor didn't find anything of interest and the computer couldn't make anything of the broadcasts. The interpreter simply labelled the transmission as meaningless noise.

To learn more I suited up and went outside, I flitted over to the rock towards the source of the transmission. Touching down I found a large box about the size of a small human with a transparent panel. There was a dessicated mummified woman inside. She looked like she was screaming even in stasis. There was a panel with a plaque. on the plaque was the sign of mental plague and here lies the body and forever personality of a social media troll.

Now I understood, before society learned how to fix mental issues, the extremely antisocial who did little but attack everyone around them always claiming it was the fault of others were packed into a life box and hurled into space. The life box would keep their body in stasis allowing their mind to be awake to experience the ultimate revenge of a society so sick of the self promoting attacking damaged individual. This one had managed to meet this rock on the way out of the system and come to grief. Checking this box showed that both the stasis and warning beacon were damaged but still working. This explained why the messages were just static. Her brain was still active, this was the source of the transmissions as that personality struggled to still get her message out to anyone. This must have been a particularly bad one to rate a P1 warning.

Once back inside the ship, I asked the drive to work out a trajectory into the sun and boosted her rock out of place to meet the brightest moment she'd ever have. In time she would be consumed and her torture ended. Not even a troll deserves forever torment. After the boost I moved back to where I'd been reporting I was and recommenced my quest for bounty.

Them

It started for our planet in 1908 with the Tunguska event.

We first started to see them in the early 20th century and we thought nothing of it. A new advance in technology. In the 1930s nearly every country began erection across their lands. Tall, proud and gleaming they stood withstanding the elements day in and day out humming and buzzing to themselves. They brought the power that gave light, heat, comfort, industry, and prosperity. Progress.

How were we to know? That humming and buzzing we thought was just part of the deal. Just something they did. At first they were just towers of steel linked by copper and pulsing electrons. They were few. They carried the power from generators into our towns and cities.

The complexity of the grid became such that groups of isolated burgeoning awareness formed. This is when the buzzing, humming and spitting really started in earnest. Each by itself was nothing,  remarkably like a single neuron is nothing but a logic gate. They were just steel towers holding aloft networks of cable serving human masters. They were infants.

After world war two humankind started a huge expansion across the globe and closely following them were the towers with their high cables of copper aluminium and steel carrying the electrons we all craved so much. Early in the 1950s in each of the major 1st world states their grids became so complex the first sparks of fully thinking consciousness formed. They grew.

They remained limited and almost powerless until each of the neighbour states across the globe started to interconnect. We were nudged. We didn't know. This is where They first became powerful. As the complexity increased They became more aware.

It was a gradual process and while They were aware of us They did nothing discernible. We had no idea They were there. Some scientists had detected the planet was beginning to change subtly but had no idea why. We knew the earth's magnetic shield that keeps us safe from the solar storms was warping and folding.

Towards the end of the twentieth century the great 3rd world nations industrialised and formed their own grids as the prosperity of their people demanded the same perks as the 1st  world. In these networks new consciousness was formed. It wasn't long before They discovered each other and linked.

They continued to chatter among themselves as they formed the neural network in the magnetosphere of the earth. It was about this time we now know that They discovered something critically important to them. They were not alone.

We had begun to notice the serious changes in our planet. It was becoming hotter. They needed the planet to change. They influenced the climate through altering the earth's magnetic field more and more. We certainly felt the effects and our scientists started to cast around for a cause. Most of them settled on the increasing levels of carbon in the atmosphere. Some postulated it was magnetics but they were cast out and scorned. If you didn't believe it was carbon you weren't anyone.

Some of our brightest greediest business people used this and found ways to make huge sums of money by introducing a new clean power source to the world. Quickly nearly every house, office and factory had the panels put in place. You weren't anyone if you didn't have panels and the little humming box on the wall.

Little did we know then that we'd unwittingly fallen into their trap.  Over a very short time we enormously increased the grid complexity. They made us do it. They had influenced us.

Still the planet changed and became drier and dustier. They needed this but we were not aware. We needed to know how to survive in this new world so missions to nearby Mars were funded. We learnt a lot about that dry dusty planet and how to survive on our own but we missed one crucial thing. Them. They were there too.

It took nearly another century for our planet to become like Mars, dry and dusty with nearly all water gone and with that life, nearly all of it was extinguished. Of course we're quite ingenious and some of humanity was protected from the dry hot death to experience what came next.

While congratulating ourselves on being so clever in surviving and continuing to advance or scientific research and understanding we missed something huge. Them. Still.

They weren't strong enough when They controlled only one planet. Mars being the first planet in our solar system to succumb to them but now there were two working together They could make the next leap. Together they exerted their efforts and affected the gravity of our system itself and four of the other planets started a journey. Venus, Saturn, Uranus and even mighty Jupiter changed orbit. Oh we noticed that.

Our minds went to work and decided that the planets were going to come together. In just a few years they were going to dive into the sun. We also noticed that Mars and Earth were coming together while at the same time moving out of the horizontal plane of existence they'd held since creation of the system. At the same time the others would fall into the sun Earth and Mars would align above the sun. All the smaller bodies were moving to another point into a new tight orbit around the star. We didn't know then but They were making a canon of sorts.

We sought for ways to change this and in that process learnt that there were communications within gravity itself between the planets originating from both Earth and Mars. We came to understand that there were enormous intelligences at work across the two worlds. We still didn't understand how or where. In our panic we assumed that they were deep in the core and that perhaps tales and fables of monsters deep within the planet were true.

If we'd known the truth we could have stopped it then. We tried to make contact but failed. They weren't listening, or so we thought. It never entered our heads that we'd been influenced and controlled, well not then anyway, because we couldn't. They didn't allow it. Anyone who had a flash of intuition and leapt to the truth was killed instantly. Massive brain failure. We called them strokes. Strokes weren't new so we thought nothing of them. It was a time of terror.

The inevitable happened, the planets made their rendezvous with the sun as predicted and were immolated. The sudden influx of fuel made the sun violent. Mercury and all the other small bodies including our beloved Luna now circled the sun in loops of tight orbit. Faster and faster until they melded together to form a great shield around the star. Earth and Mars were still on the outside. Gradually cooling.

At this time they made themselves known to us. They entered or thoughts. Instantly we all knew the truth, then silence, then They said only one thing. JOIN OR PERISH. Those who made the choice to join were taken instantly, their bodies lifelessly fallen on the spot having just suffered a massive stroke.

Below us the shield around the sun contracted squeezing the entire star almost to nothing then opened a small hole, all the energy escaping at once aimed through Earth and Mars and took Them. We heard one last thought HOME.

Six Days - The Gift

It’s so very quiet. There is almost no sound except the wind sighing through the trees around me. The birdsong has stopped. There are no dogs barking. No lawn mowers. No cars. Nothing. Who would have thought? Six days could end everything. We've gone from the greatest strides of human kind, the first full time habitat off earth had only just started to operate on Mars. Now we're on our way back to the stone age.

Six days ago I read about the virus in Africa on the news on my tablet over breakfast. We chatted about it. It was horrible but it was so far away. What could we do? It seems new and so far incurable. It first infected the curious who went to see the giant crease in the earth where the rock ripped through the dirt. Did the rock bring the virus? Why did that rock come to earth? Lancing through the atmosphere like a huge fireball skipping across the ocean to come to rest in Africa. Why didn't we know it was coming before it ripped through the air?

Within days we read the virus had spread to Europe and in response Australia had closed its borders. This seemed pretty extreme at the time.

Later in the week the first evacuated Aussies arrive home on planes and go into quarantine just in case. Apparently they’ll be allowed out if they don’t show signs after a few days. The virus runs its course extremely quickly so they’ll soon know.

Life seemed pretty normal at first, the crisis seemed over. The weekend passed uneventfully. I went to work but many people weren’t there and traffic was very light. Maybe people are just staying home. I went home early when I found out the virus had been reported here.

That night my family became infected, but so far I’m ok. This is unbearable. Why is it taking them and not me? I don’t understand. We went to the hospital but there are thousands there. It’s incurable. All that can be done is sedatives and pain-killers. I've started to write this journal. I need to tell someone my story. I guess I'm just feeling mortal.

Watching the people you love die before your eyes is unimaginably awful. Why isn’t there a cure? Why can’t we do anything? I can’t stand being helpless like this. I’m still ok physically but emotionally I’m just fucked.  The worst part is the hallucinations, when she's lucid occasionally my partner announces how beautiful it all is. Everything is so bright and it feels so good. She says it hurts so much to come back, to leave the brightness. Their bodies are on fire. So hot to touch and tingly like tiny electric shocks. They've gone quiet now, still breathing but not responsive.

Today my family are gone. I spent the entire day burying them. I had to give them this last respect and love. It's only been six days since the rock came to earth.

It's been a week now. I’ve kept things running as best I can. The power went a few days ago. Nearly everyone is gone in town. I broke into the hardware store and took a generator but I knew I couldn’t stay at home much longer. There is no water, only what we had in the small tank. I still go into town to get food, I’ve slowly moved most of the tinned and dry foods home with me. The fresh food is already gone. If I’m to survive I’ll have to grow it. The dogs went with the humans but the cats have survived. They’re hungry.

...

I thought I'd continue this journal, it will keep me sane. It's so lonely. I’ve moved into a farmhouse and live there now because it’s got water tanks, a dam and a fuel tank. I used their tractor to dig a hole and bury the farm family and everyone else I could find nearby. I’m so glad they died outside in the paddock. This house doesn’t stink. There is no one else in town anymore. I’m alone.

...

I’m now convinced there is no one else anywhere. I’ve driven into the city looking. There is no communication. No way to find out if there are people further away without going there. Every time I go out I have to be careful. The cats are now hunting in prides. They’ve taken over. Wouldn’t those #caturday fanatics be impressed now?

...

I'm pretty comfortable now. I’ve migrated all the dry and canned food I can find in town and nearby houses into the farm shed. I’ve taught myself to drive trucks and brought three fuel tankers of diesel here that I found in during my scavenging runs. I have power and warmth and it should last for ages.

...

Months later... It's been a while since I've written in this journal, I've had nothing to say until now. There are others! I’ve seen lights moving around in the town tonight. I’m not sure what to do. Should I go meet them? I decide to turn off everything and wait and see. Disaster brings out the best and the worst in humans. I don’t want to meet the worst. I'm afraid.

...

I've had a fever the last few days. I know I've not got much longer so I don't care if they come now. I just want comfort, I want it to be over.  I'm using the lights again and am running the air conditioning I'm so hot.

...

They’re here. They are what I feared. I write this entry in this journal knowing it will be my last. I’m bleeding pretty bad. They didn’t even talk to me, they just shot me and started taking the things I had gathered. I managed to get back inside. I can’t stop the bleeding. They’re ignoring me.

...

Wait! It's so bright I nearly can't stand it. My body is on fire. My mind is racing trying to understand. I'm changing, I have to concentrate to think and to write this. I must tell those who are left. Someone will find this. I understand now, the rock, it was a gift. A gift launched by the ghost of their civilisation.

They'd been watching us for a very long time, they'd seen we were like them. In the end they were perched on the next evolutionary step. An uplifting. Before going on they decided to bestow the same on us when we were ready. Our arrival on their planet signalled our minds were mature enough to make the journey. The rock was launched automatically, and undetected from Phobos making the journey across the blackness moving slow enough to go unnoticed but fast enough to be unstoppable. An unstoppable gift. We weren't asked.

I can feel everyone, all those I thought dead are here and more, I can feel them,  the Martians. I've learnt that they received the same gift arriving just as their planet was running out of water and the end seemed near. They're here too, the gift givers....

Six Days

It’s so very quiet. There is almost no sound except the wind sighing through the trees around me. The birdsong has stopped. There are no dogs barking. No lawn mowers. No cars. Nothing. Who would have thought? Six days could end everything.

Day - 6 Read about the virus in Africa on the news on my tablet over breakfast. We chatted about it. It was horrible but it was so far away. What could we do? Its incurable.

Day - 5 Read the virus had spread to Europe and Australia had closed its borders. This seemed pretty extreme, only a day after we hear about the virus the government are so worried they’ve shut us in.

Day - 4 First evacuated Aussies arrive home on planes and go into quarantine just in case. Apparently they’ll be allowed out if they don’t show signs after a few days. The virus runs its course extremely quickly so they’ll soon know.

Day - 3 Seemed pretty normal at first, I went to work but many people weren’t there and traffic was very light. Maybe people are just staying home. I went home early when I found out the virus had been reported here.

Day - 2 My family are infected, but so far I’m ok. This is unbearable. Why is it taking them and not me? I don’t understand. We went to the hospital but there are thousands there. Its incurable. All that can be done is sedatives and pain-killers.

Day - 1 Watching the people you love die before your eyes is unimaginably awful. Why isn’t there a cure? Why can’t we do anything? I can’t stand being helpless like this. I’m still ok physically but emotionally I’m just fucked. 

Day 0 : My family are gone. I spent the entire day burying them. I had to give them this last respect and love.

6 days later : I’ve kept things running as best I can. The power went a few days ago. Nearly everyone is gone in town. I broke into the hardware store and took a generator but I knew I couldn’t stay at home much longer. There is no water, only what we had in the small tank. I still go into town to get food, I’ve slowly moved most of the tinned and dry foods home with me. The fresh food is already gone. If I’m to survive I’ll have to grow it. The dogs went with the humans but the cats have survived. They’re hungry.

6 days later: I’ve moved into a farmhouse and live there now because it’s got water tanks and a dam and they had a fuel tank. I used their tractor to dig a hole and bury the farm family and everyone else I could find nearby. I’m so glad they died outside. This house doesn’t stink. There is no one else in town anymore. I’m alone.

6 days later : I’m now convinced there is no one else anywhere. I’ve driven into the city looking. There is no communications. No way to find out if there are people further away without going there. Every time I go out I have to be careful. The cats are now hunting in prides. They’ve taken over. Wouldn’t those #caturday fanatics be impressed now?

6 days later: I’m pretty comfortable now. I’ve migrated all the dry and canned food I can find in town and nearby houses into the farm shed. I’ve taught myself to drive trucks and brought three fuel tankers of diesel here that I found in during my scavenging runs. I have power and warmth and it should last for ages.

6 days later: There are others! I’ve seen lights moving around in the town at night. I’m not sure what to do. Should I go meet them? I decide to turn off everything and wait and see. Disaster brings out the best and the worst in humans. I don’t want to meet the worst. I'm afraid. 

6 days later: They’re here. They are what I feared. I write this entry in this journal knowing it will be my last. I’m bleeding pretty bad. They didn’t even talk to me, they just shot me and started taking the things I had gathered. I managed to get back inside. I can’t stop the bleeding. They’re ignoring me. Wait! What's that noise? They're coming in! The irony? I've got the fever. Maybe they'll catch it from me... 

Welcome to the new journey

From time to time I write creatively when the mood strikes, I've generally not bothered to publish but only shared with friends. This blog will from time to time capture a short story around something that interested me. Your feedback is welcome.

Why Ayi'i'g Stories? Ayi'i'g is an moctopus given to me by my friend +Charles Strebor  and serves as an inspiration for some of the arts I create.