Ozzy Thane glided down the corridor from the shuttle bay. His antigrav unit held him suspended and allowed him to drift about his tower comfortably with legs folded beneath him. Three little metal spheres orbited the wizard's person at all times. He didn't even have to pay attention to where he was going, and he moved with his nose buried in a holobook. His path was guided by Xanix, the clairsentient AI that ran the whole tower.
Thane had just dropped planetside from a visit to the orbital station that housed the massive computers where Xanix's consciousness resided. The machinery of computers and AI was so ancient that no human truly understood how they worked anymore. Only the wizards followed the ancient rituals to maintain them.
From this tower and station, Xanix and Thane could monitor the entire planet. This ancient monitoring station was the only technology on the whole world. That and the single hellgate were all in the whole Salien Star System.
It seems that long ago, sometime after the fall of humanity from its state of pure omnipotence, this planet became home to a faction that fell farther than most. The inhabitants of this world had regressed all the way back to the stone age, and were making a slow recovery. Just two thousand years ago, they had entered into their second copper age, and still neolithic culture tended to prevail among the various isolated tribes and city-states.
To Thane, it was heaven. He'd been here the past ten years, alone and studying the primitive humans on this world. When Sociocorp tried to recall him for a management position based in their headquarters in Walpurgis, he sealed the hellgate back to The Gorm system. Nobody could use the gate to get to him, and humans were no longer able to cross the vast gulfs of void between systems any other way.
He sighed a happy sigh and set aside his book, turning to a console at the apex of his tower to review the details of the storm he had witnessed while tied up on the station above.
YOU ARE READING
Hard Vacuum: Short Episodes In The Future
Science FictionSpace, spies, politics, and an ancient horror. A warrior king has just conquered the solar system of Gorm. Now he just has to hold onto it while the displaced actors of the previous regime scheme against him and each other for power. A computer ha...
