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Abandoned World: The Awakening
Vladimir Anderson
We haven't seen our creators and we don't know where they came from. We don't know anything at all. Twenty-four years ago, the first of us woke up, and then the other seven thousand. We are the second generation to live on this earth and not know the details. That world that has been entrusted to us has very few colors, and its main one is gray. We see gray on this planet everywhere outside of our station. We can breathe freely only when we are on the station itself, and even the ability to walk normally is only on our station too. And outside of it, we will die without spacesuits, and our ability to move around turns into light hops across the surface. Whoever left us all this didn't even bother to tell us what we were all doing there, or what our mission was. *** A station on the dark side of the moon, where people woke up from cryosleep not knowing where they were or what to do.
Vladimir Anderson
Abandoned World: The Awakening
Prologue
We haven't seen our creators and we don't know where they came from. We don't know anything at all. Twenty-four years ago, the first of us woke up, and then the other seven thousand. We are the second generation to live on this earth without knowing the details.
That world that has been entrusted to our care has very few colors, and its main one is gray. We see gray on this planet everywhere outside of our station. We can breathe freely only when we are on the station itself, and even the ability to walk normally is only on our station too. And outside of it, we will die without spacesuits, and our ability to move around turns into light jumps on the surface.
The one who left us all this didn't even bother to tell us what we were all doing there, or what our task was. Let alone explain to us why we were treated so cruelly – left alone without the right to live a full life.
Now we are ruled by the Supreme Council of Elders organized by ourselves. In the beginning, everything was decided by a general meeting, but we quickly realized that it was inefficient and caused more discussion than practical use.
Natalie
The main dining room, where Natalie was eating now, was quite spacious, unlike most of the other rooms in our large common house, Appollo-24. That's what we call it, because the word is written literally everywhere – on the seal doors, in the headers of the bulletin boards, on dishes, clothing, and exterior paneling. We all know for a fact that this is the name of our station. And this name bored us so much that already on the first clothes, which we began to make ourselves, and not to get from warehouses, we wrote anything else or nothing, as long as not to write this ubiquitous Appollo-24, the meaning of which nobody knew.
Natalie had synthetic porridge and two sausages on her plate. Despite its humble appearance, she found it delicious, from the beginning to the point of satiety, a clear sign that it was not only hunger that made her appetite grow, but also the food itself. I always want to go and ask for a refill, but we all know we're not entitled to a refill; each of us has been assigned an exact portion by a decision approved by the Council of Elders.
There were separate conversations about this, of course. After all, none of us saw what would happen if we didn't eat as much as we were allowed. We had a case three years ago when one of us, Wyatt Maverick, lost a family member – after a few days of a strange fever, one of the waking twenty-four year olds died prematurely. The grief was such that Wyatt stopped eating, and despite entreaties from administration, friends, and even a few Council members, continued to do so for nearly a week until he collapsed. He didn't look very healthy before that, but after he stopped eating, he began to pale, lose strength, and sleep longer than usual. Thus we learned what can happen to us if we stop eating – we become pale, lack strength and faint. Some have suggested the opposite in that if we eat more than allowed – becoming red, powerful and with insomnia. The picture is not much better. And since that is the case, it is better to listen to the elders once again – since they were the first to wake up, they know best.
At Natalie's table was Taylor from the extraction department, a guy three years younger than Natalie – she was thirty-two now, and like him, she was of the generation that woke up as a child. He'd been hitting on her for a while now, and once she'd even heard him rave about her breasts, calling them "firm balls" that he'd love to fondle. She had heard a lot about her figure, and she knew very well how many desires men had when they passed by – the jumpsuit fit her breasts and hips very tightly, and even though it was a little tight in places, she didn't think of changing the
size of her clothes. She loved the fact that she was attracting so much lust, though she wasn't attracted to Taylor at all. He was too much of a pushover, and that, as always, only served to repel. But as a conversationalist, he was very nice.
– Nat, you know what I found last night? After lights out… I was up all night. – Taylor would sometimes start talking to her like that, thinking he could get her interested, and sometimes he did.
Natalie didn't say anything back-she knew it was worth it to pretend to be interested, and he'd drag on with the story, as if it would give him some points in her personal conquest. As if her interest in his story would make her want him more than not at all. And there's no way to explain it. We've all learned that multiplying 0 by any number is useless, it's still 0. Or maybe he doesn't realize he has a 0. He thinks there are other numbers after the decimal point.
– Or are you not interested? – Apparently, Taylor was beginning to realize over time that the tactic wasn't working and needed to be changed. Or at least try.
– Tell me if there's anything. I'm all ears. – The girl still didn't show that she was really interested, continuing to realize that it was the only thing that protected her. After all, learning something new was always something she wanted to do, because the knowledge itself was almost nonexistent. She had long believed that the elders knew much more, but they just didn't tell the others for their own, probably far-fetched reasons. Or maybe they were waiting for something. And if that's the case, then you have to be able not to pretend that you are waiting for some moment that may never come. You are waiting for the truth, which may not be there, but certainly won't be if everyone sees that you need it so much.
– Starcraft. – He finally announced very quietly and conspiratorially, so that no one could hear but her. – I found Starcraft yesterday…
– What's that? To brush your teeth? Back scratching? What do you do with it? – From time to time, everyone found different objects, and then they worked together to figure out their purpose, leaving it for the use of the one who found it. Sometimes it happened to find a thing together with a manual, and then the elders copied it, rewarding the finder separately for the find.
– No…" Taylor said even more quietly. – It's a game… On a computer…
Now that was a crime. In school, from the very beginning of education, it was taught what a crime was and how it could be punished. There were two kinds of crimes: negligent "misdemeanor" and intentional "felony". The former concerned mistakes made in one's work, or accidentally slipping out a forbidden phrase that could be overheard. For example, one could not publicly question the assigned lessons of our history. Since we were taught that our planet was third from the sun in number, the smallest in the solar system, then it was. If we were told that we had once polluted it to the point where it was no longer safe to be on the surface without a hazmat suit, then that was also true. Since we were taught that all other planets were uninhabited, there was no point in doubting it, at least not publicly. No one told you not to think what you want to think. The elders directly said – you have freedom of thought, it is a very important gift, no one can take it away from you. But don't break other people's thoughts – keep your own to yourself. For breaking other people's thoughts you could get a warning from the elders, as an unintentional crime.
The second category of crimes, intentional, concerned those things that were done with the purpose of violating the foundations of our society, such as hiding found materials. Whether it was information on a computer or a separate medium, when found, it was supposed to be immediately handed over for study by the elders themselves, because it could be something sacred, which was supposed to be known only to them. Otherwise, one could be imprisoned in the so-called prison of longing or simply "Toska", a separate structure from the main station, where one could be placed for a period of time equal to the crime committed, which was also determined by the elders.
– Are you making this up to get me into your room? – Natalie really didn't believe that Taylor would be willing to break the law so severely, even if it gave him something to actually be interested
in. He might be obsessed with the idea of fucking her, but not to the point where he'd risk being trapped for years in Tosca, where he'd have another desire, now just to get back to normal.
– No, no… I'll tell you… Anyway, there are different planets out there. And it's not just people like us. It's not just humans. There's also protos and zerg. Protos are like us, only with blue blood and oblong shapes. They seem to have technology that's cooler than ours. And the Zerg are like cockroaches, only bigger. And they can breathe without a spacesuit…
– And what are they all doing?
– They're fighting. They're fighting over resources. There's crystals and green gas. It's strange, of course. We don't mine that kind of stuff here.
– Maybe you wouldn't have taken such a risk then, and just given this game to the right people to study?
– Yes? And once again we'll be given back an empty stump with one story, as they tell us? Or even with fiction, which can't be?
– From what you're telling me, it's already fantastic as it can't be… So you'll apparently get it back the same, and everyone on the station will just end up getting a new game.
Taylor was a little offended. He didn't seem to be fully telling what he knew, and he hadn't decided if he should. On the one hand, it showed that he wasn't lying about the game. On the other hand, there was nothing interesting about it.
– That's not all I found on this flash drive....
– A flash drive?! – so he didn't just find one program in a hidden folder on his computer, he found a whole media with something new, and now he's sitting there on his own, digging through it. You might not come back from Tosca at all.
– Quiet, you… Yes, a flash drive… There are more movies. I haven't seen them yet. But it
looks interesting… I was going to suggest that we go together. Will you go?
It seems that the concern has blown his mind, and he wants her to keep him company in Tosca, too. It was an interesting plan, though – he'd have no competition there, and she might forget what those she liked looked like. It looked like he'd thought about how he was going to spend the next thirty years.
– Taylor, I have no desire to spend the rest of my life watching you in a jail cell And it looks
like that's where it might end up. Give that flash drive to the elders, and then you can tell me what you get back. – Natalie got up from the table and took the tray with the leftovers and moved towards the exit.
***
It was not the first time she had heard of similar finds. People had found flash drives, memory cards, and even whole laptops in completely different places. Of course, most of them had been found in the first year, when everyone woke up, but they still found bits and pieces. And, as it usually turned out, they were tidbits that only fueled the intrigue for such things, despite the threat of prison. And there was something about it We had an official history of our planet and
everything around it, and there was no good reason to suggest that it wasn't. Except for the very beginning of our present life.
We are officially on the third planet from the Sun, called Earth. It is the smallest in the solar system and therefore has no satellites, unlike most other planets. And a few thousand years ago, it was of a completely different kind than it is now: with beautiful seas and oceans, evergreen forests and lots of wildlife in it. Back then it was still possible to walk freely on the surface and live without a spacesuit. But for a long time everything was polluted to such an extent that the cataclysms that occurred led to what we have now – a gray lifeless desert with no air. At one point we agreed to immerse ourselves in a centuries-old cryosleep to wait for better times. But waking up after the dream, we realized that we had lost our memory in the process, and now we are recovering it bit by
bit. And to keep the truth from weighing us down, all information must first go to the elders, who understand the importance of dosing information. That was the story we were taught from birth in school. But it was not readily believed by everyone.
After all, there were a number of contradictions. Some said that it was safe to walk on the station, because special engines were working there, forming a stronger attraction. While outside it – you can easily jump without much difficulty for a dozen meters.
Others have found a contradiction in the fact that textbook maps have many mountains and other kinds of high altitude landscapes that are not even close to being on our planet. Okay, that everything died out, vaporized, and became impossible to breathe, but why did the topography change so much. Of course, only a few people were allowed to walk everywhere, and even more so to ride far away on overcars, and they kept silent in front of everyone else, but from any window one could see the complete absence of any mountainous systems on all sides of Appollo-24.
Others went even further and began to study the movies that we got on various kinds of media and that we were allowed to watch. And the biggest question that came to mind was why the technologies we see in the movies are not very different from ours, but the surrounding reality is completely different. They can breathe fresh air, they have seas and forests, and the same technology. If it came out that we've screwed up our own planet, it couldn't have happened overnight. Which means the movies we've seen are far from catastrophic. But it can't be, because technology certainly doesn't stand still – how much we've managed to invent in our twenty-four....
There were no answers to all these questions – only doubts. Some people had tried to dig into them, but it had been 14 years since they had been forbidden to discuss them publicly. The new found materials began to be turned in after the incident when Oscar Midnight, an engineer of the energy block, was put in Tosca's cell for concealing a hard disk he had found. No one even knows what he saw there, or if he saw it at all, but when he was taken away he shouted that everyone was being lied to, that the place we were on was called the moon, not Earth, and on that word he was hit in the back of the head. Fourteen years have passed since then, and no one has ever seen him again, and everyone began to share their thoughts only in whispers.
It was very strange to look at. Could just renaming his planet to something else be such a threat? The fact that he called the Earth Moon wouldn't change it, even if it did. It will still be the third planet from the Sun, even if it has a different name. Everything will be just as bleak as it is now, and just as hopeless. The best we can do now is to adapt to the conditions we have and still live our lives. And let them call this planet whatever they want, but she, Natalie, is thirty-two years old now, and she still gets so underdressed she wants to climb the wall.
It wasn't hard for her to admit it to herself, but she didn't like the men who were always chasing her. She had short romances, but even if in bed, some of them were okay, there was nothing to talk about with them. And they clearly valued her breasts and ass, not her intelligence. She didn't even doubt that, just as she didn't think she could get very far with that.
And that was important, after all. She had been preparing herself since birth to use her own brains for the common good, and now she was proud to say that she had succeeded. She was now the lead researcher in the science department, and it was her job to study primarily the matter around them for any benefit. And her recent discovery, the extraction of helium-3 from soil, was truly a breakthrough.
It's a shame so few people knew about it. Even if someone had given them access to this information, it would hardly have made a difference. Few people realize that the thermonuclear power plant we have at the station could not work forever without a new boost. At first, the generation of electricity was considered something supernatural, believing that it didn't need to be managed. But very quickly they realized that without human intervention such a system would not work all the time. And that it, like everything else, also needs to be fed with something. The material
was found quickly enough, but it was only six months ago that the department under Natalie Jackson realized how to separate one thing from another so that something else could be used as fuel.
Then Natalie was quietly rewarded by being moved to a larger room in the New York block. She had two rooms, each larger than her previous home. And the people who lived there were much more educated than those who lived with her in the Texas block.
There were four blocks in all: northern Illinois, eastern New York, western California, southern Texas. Appollo-24 was in the shape of a cross with a voluminous center with a branch off to each side with a separate block. Texas, where she'd lived before, was dominated by people from the mining and food section – more laboring and less thinking. Among them were just most of her suitors, with whom she was so dissatisfied. In New York, in addition to the science section, there were also people from the energy section, who were notable for their intelligence and ability to find complex solutions. One of them, Morgan Blackwood, whom she had recently met, had even taken a liking to her.
He was very different from all the others, especially in his intelligence. He literally understood on the fly what could be the cause of some process and began to work in this direction. There was no ostentatious show-off from him – he carefully and systematically considered all the pros and cons of some statement, and then said aloud how they could be perceived. And what was especially attractive was his patience – he didn't seem to lose his temper at all, and the emotions coming from him, which were few, were usually positive.
But the difficulty was that for some reason he wasn't paying much attention to her. It looked like he liked her too, but he didn't really need much of anything. Morgan could keep up a conversation with her, make jokes, show her something, but nothing more than that. As soon as work time was over, he'd retreat to his room.
And the more original way to look at it was that the last project she had to conduct was with him. Morgan was the head of one of the departments in the energy section responsible for monitoring the fusion reactor. Checking, measuring, predicting and being sure of everything that happened to it – that was his central task. Natalie was assigned to investigate the possibilities of expanding its power at maximum efficiency while using Helium-3, which she had just learned how to adapt to use from the surrounding ground.
Morgan showed and told her everything about the reactor's operation. In places where the data was highly classified, he'd said so. He'd even recommended that the two of them petition to release the data to her, but she'd thought that was premature. In truth, though, she just wanted to spend more time with him. He felt safe and secure, as if he was a shield from the problems around him, and when she was in the same room with him, she felt safer than ever.
On this day, she wanted to know more about him. Maybe it would encourage him to do something. After all, there weren't that many people on Apollo 24, and he'd pick someone eventually.
– Do you ever get tired here? When you're working. – she asked, after they'd been working on the schematics of one of the fuel rods for an hour and a half, trying to figure out how to configure it for helium-3.
– I'm more tired when I'm not working," Morgan answered without looking at her. – I'm here on my day off, too.
– And you don't get tired of it? – she moved a little closer to him. Just a little. The office they were sitting in didn't even have windows to the outside, and given that the entire area was three by four meters, but it was hard to imagine a more intimate setting.
– It happens. – Morgan turned to her and looked straight into her eyes, and there was something in those eyes that showed his returning interest in her. – But it passes quickly when I go back to work… I'm more interested in where we're going to do all this…
– I don't understand you. You mean "where"? What are the options? – She really didn't know what he meant.
– You see, what's working now is a nuclear reactor. And judging by the processes that are going on in it, it's safe to say that if it were to explode, the whole of Apollo 24 would be wiped out. Maybe it wouldn't hit something standing in the distance, but the station itself would be turned inside out in seconds… What we're studying right now is a fusion reactor. Even though it's probably the size of this room, it will be three times more powerful… And the question is, will we be allowed to build it on the station itself?
She really hadn't thought about that at all. To her, even the talk about the explosive danger of their already operating reactor seemed more like scare stories told to keep people awake on the job and to make them more responsible. After all, if it went out, for example, they were just as likely to die as if it exploded, just longer.
– Yeah, you can blow up if you work every day…" she said with a sigh, starting to think it wouldn't work at all. He's too immersed in his activities, obviously, which he enjoys day after day. They say you can fight abusers, but you can't fight workaholics. It's a perfectly legal withdrawal from your personal life, certainly in the conditions we live in.
Morgan smiled, and she thought he looked at the curve of her breasts in the jumpsuit for what seemed like an eternity, but still:
– You say that like you don't even want to live.
– How can you call it life when everyone around you is just thinking about how to do a better job… You know, they often hide behind the desire to get some results, but that's not the point. I've seen how they work – they sit idle, they spend their time for nothing, and there's no use… You need a spark – a desire to find something. When you have it, then you'll get results. And then you will do something with interest, and at some moments you will also delay until you finally get what you are looking for. And you will be satisfied with yourself, and you will want to spend time after that in pleasure… Because you will know that only after having a good rest, you can get a new spark, which will also lead you to the next success… That's what I mean. – Her eyes directly glittered as she said this, with a tone that wasn't instructive or haughty. She just wanted to say that everything has its own time, and the time that you are entitled to should not be thrown away as something unnecessary.
Morgan shook his head affirmatively, looking at the blueprints again. Still, he was handsome, too. Not just smart and calm, but handsome, too. It was the kind of masculine beauty that was not immediately apparent and could not be boasted of as a picture. This beauty is more charismatic, radiant, as if there was a difference between a face made of bronze or shabby paper. This one was made of bronze.
– I take it you didn't have a good time in Texas? – he finally said.
– Not really… You can't argue… Have you ever wondered why our blocks are called that? Like
states?
– No… Somehow I never thought about it… But they are quite logically located on the sides
of the world.
– That's true. But then why is the station itself called Apollo and not America or the United States, for example? We are told that we live in the former USA in North America. Would that make sense? Or if it's a city, why not just call it that city?
– Natalie, this kind of talk… You've only known me for a couple months and already you trust me so much....
– All right. If you can't be trusted, then I'll know… And I'll know what a bore you are. Now
do you see why you're talking about something you can't call life? Everybody's either horny or boring. Sometimes both at the same time.
It sometimes seemed to her that it was true that all men were strictly divided into these two types. Some think with their dicks, others only with their heads. And the ones who could think with their heads and only satisfy her with their dicks had never been found. That would be ideal, and it seems she's not going to find one. They're all either all about cock or all about brains. I mean, it's like he looked at her breasts, he was attracted to something. But he didn't. That's exactly what it seemed like.
– When you made the helium-3 discovery, what were you thinking? – Morgan turned to her again and stared into her eyes. Her beautiful, bright green eyes. And so appealing that she immediately stopped thinking of him as a nerd.
– I was just interested… I studied it because I was interested. Not to do any good for anyone.
Or to get a better place to live. No… But because I was interested… And I can definitely say that's why I did it… Interest is the spark that drives us to something more....
– What about our fusion reactor project?
– That's up to you. – Natalie said the words slowly, first averting her gaze and then returning it to Morgan's eyes at the end of the sentence. She wanted him to be interested in something. If not her figure, her beauty, or her intelligence, then at least some mystery, even if there wasn't one.
And it seemed to work, because he smiled. He smiled just a little, and shook his head affirmatively:
– Then we can definitely make it work. We could go have coffee at my place once we're
done. Is that okay with you?
A small stone flew off her shoulders, though there were literally many other stones still on her back as she did so:
– Well, unless you insist.
– I insist. So here's the deal We've got another half hour on these drawings today. And to
keep our conscience clear, we should finalize them properly…
***
His quarters consisted of four separate rooms, not just two like hers, but four at once-not just luxurious by our standards, but unprecedented. Natalie hadn't even known it was possible to live like this, or that there were private rooms of this size on the station.
– How's the coffee? – Morgan asked. Before he poured her a mug, he asked about what kind she liked to drink it in, what she liked to put more of, and, most interestingly, how she understood the process in general. It was strange and surprising at the same time – she had never really thought about the fact that people could do the same things while inwardly understanding completely different things. It wasn't until he asked specifically about her way of seeing that she realized that it was something that came out completely different for everyone. She was the one who drank coffee to relax, smelling the delicious aroma and nothing more. And someone else drank it to perk up, to take a break, to think about something. And probably a lot of other things she couldn't even think of. And these thoughts about coffee made her think that all things people could do in the same way, from the simplest to the most exclusive.
For example, to do something that brings you income as a useful member of society – this people could consider from the position of personal satisfaction, and from the position of recognition by others, and just not to sit idle, dying of boredom, and to communicate with someone, including not on everyday issues. It turned out that not everyone and not everything people do as it seems at first glance, simply because we have long been accustomed to perceive it that way. And that opens up the next level of this cognition.
After all, since everyone perceives even basic things differently, therein lies the difference in results and approach. In this context, this conclusion becomes obvious, although initially it did not even come to mind. And all because we are used to perceiving people everywhere as we have
