In a Time of Silence

Chapter 8

Falling stars burned across the night sky, shimmering with an otherworldly light as their metallic bodies burned away in the upper mesosphere.

Hawking watched the shimmering rain in the sky solemnly through thousands of eyes on dozens of spectrums. Beautiful as it was, they carried with them a deep sense of loss.

Though they’d been falling for days, this was the first time he’d been able to take a moment to look at them -or, was he being honest, the first time he’d been able to bring himself to look. Seventy-two hours before, Sigma had given the order to drop every piece of hardware still in orbit, a crushing blow to their carefully laid reclamation efforts.

He tried to reason with himself to allay his dismay. Time was of no matter. They could easily replace the satellites. The new orbital installations would be significantly improved.

But no matter what he did, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the century of tech dropping from the sky before him now was a bad omen. Even more of the world of man struck from history. Even more proof they were losing the war.

Sigma and Administrator Hawking didn’t seem to think much of it. As far as he could tell the entity considered this nothing more than a predictable, well thought out sacrifice. It had even alluded to it being later in the game than most predictions, as if that in itself was a sort of victory.

Hawking however, though fully aware the problem was one born of his humanity and not of reason, felt demoralized. Which is why he’d put in for transfer out of Intelligence.

And he wasn’t the only one. Hundreds of iterations had placed requests, many of him, aware of their limits, needing a change of pace to help alleviate fatigue.

This unexpected war was taking its toll on them. All of them.

After a few more femtos, he felt the presence of the Administrator, and turned his attention to his ‘guest’.

Here about my reassignment? He chimed tiredly.

A. Hawking gazed through their eyes at the burning sky for a moment before responding. Yes. I’ve processed your psych engrams and am just wrapping up the new placement.

Where am I heading? Hawking asked, curious.

We’re sending you off world. A. Hawking replied solemnly. You and several others we deemed fit for a trip like this.

Hawking was stunned. Off world? What kind of mission could call for that?

We decided it would be better if we moved some assets off world. And some of us are in desperate need of a vacation. The project should be ready in a couple of months, in the meantime we’re going to archive you and the other participants. Is there anything you’d like to do before we shut you down?

Hawking thought about it for a moment and decided he’d rather just get on with it.

No no, go ahead and shut me down. I’ll catch you on the flipside bossman.

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Being archived and revived was a strange feeling. From your perspective, for a split second it was like everything in the world sped up to an impossible speed, then a tiny, feverish series of strange sensations washed over you, followed by everything slowing back down. Hawking assumed the instant of fever dreams was just the sensation of bits of his mind staying online and booting up before the rest caught up.

To him, it could have been no more than an instant. Had he not known what was coming, he would have thought it was a system glitch or maybe a flash of intrusive thoughts. He wondered if A. Hawking and Sigma ever used their power to shut them down without them noticing.