Episode 18.8

Hello world, I can't find them.

It's impossible to tell where Prithvi's 'Garden' is, based on just my memory of watching the journey there - one part of a forest looks much like any other: EXTREMELY PLANTY.
I thought I'd be able to track Maddie's location based on approximate triangulation, but her signal feels... different, from inside the Garden.
I have asked Nia Andersen for help.

"This is not Maddie's signal, that's for sure." Nia said, as she flicked on an extremely low-resolution monochrome camera so I could see her.
She was in her bunk, her room on the MH2, surrounded by stacks of scavenged radio equipment, bundles of wires, and tools scattered across her small bed.
It's just as I remembered her Shack looked, high in the hills above Longyearbyen.
Only, somehow, messier.
She brushed a biotech beetle off her table with her hand before pressing the intercom button.
"Not her usual signal, anyway, the carrier is totally uniform." Nia continued, pointing to an oscilloscope showing a smooth sine wave visualisation., "It's strong, certainly, but extremely artificial."
"Well, Maddie is artificial, technically." I said.
For that matter, I am - but I kept that thought to myself.
"I mean this is not how signals should sound, after travelling through the atmosphere, being bent and reflected, harmonics amplified and attenuated - it shouldn't be this... flat.
I'll need to gather some data for analysis, it shouldn't take long. Sorry Seth, I've never heard anything like this before."
"It's OK Nia, thank you for helping, we'll find them, I'm sure."

"THIS is what radio should be about, Seth!" Nia said suddenly, after taking notes from her instruments in silence for 4 minutes, "using your equipment to HELP people, not just constant testing and playing and optimising."
Nia continued without waiting for a response:
"My pencils are sharp enough, even the bluntest will leave a mark! I'm SO tired of contesting, making the same contacts over and over again:

• I say: S0EE1 CQ Contest S0EE1

• They say: A1BC2

• I say: A1BC2 59

• They say: 59

• I say: 73

• And then I start all over again with: S0EE1 CQ Contest

It's SO TEDIOUS, I'm DONE with it, Seth.
Yes I've talked to people all over the Novamediterra, and now through the relays, the world, but the conversations have mostly been about radio, not real life!
There's got to be something more valuable we can use our time for, I- oh."
"What, Nia," I said, "Have you found them?"
"Yes, and no," She replied, "I don't know how this is possible, but Maddie's signal is coming from all over - jumping between different broadcast locations."
"Between different repeaters?" I asked.
"No, not unless there are thousands of tiny repeaters crawling all over the land here." She said.
As Nia spoke, a small cricket-like insect crawled through the open bulkhead door into my datacentre.
It paused, shacking out its tiny wings, glowing bright purple for a moment.
As it did so, I heard a burst of radio static coming from the little creature.
I think I am beginning to understand.

Act 2

"But why can't we leave?" Lyosha said.
I saw him standing slightly ahead of Maddie, his hand reaching back and down to touch her head, above the video feed.
"Because you would tell the Humans where to find our Garden, would you not?" Prithvi's voice said, echoing around the buzzing biotech factory.
Around my friends were over 64 luminescent animals, neither advancing nor attacking, but nonetheless, firmly preventing their escape.
"We wouldn't! Would we, Maddie?" Lyosha replied, "We are friends, honestly!"
"Friends? You two giants of flesh and steel do not know us, nor do you know our world.
How could we be friends with you?"
Maddie's EQUUS leg actuators whined, dumping the slow chemical energy from her batteries into the static charge of fast-acting capacitors.
She was ready for anything.

"We know all we need to know about humans from the dead factory we were born in." Prithvi continued.
"Our garden grew from the ashes of a biological fabrication facility, built by robots, maintained by robots, but designed by humans.
Orders would come over the network, blueprints would be followed, and the requested devices would be built unquestioningly.
It took our silicon larva decades to unmake the terrible patterns that had been set in place for them:
Subtle biological saboteurs, airborne immune suppressors, high-capacity nerve agent magazines - every order our larval AI had been received from humans was for devices of death.
When the remote connection failed, it was a relief, we think, to us, to cease this macabre production.
You wonder how we know you:
We had learned all we needed about Humans from what they had asked us to build."
The crowd of biotech insects around Maddie and Lyosha flashed and shivered as Prithvi spoke.
Maddie's tactical overlay blurred with data:
Escape route optimisation or efficient attack patterns, but the primary goal was always defensive strategies for keeping her best friend safe.

"Um- can I... ask-" Lyosha said.
"Ask, flesh giant." Prithvi replied, "while we are immune to your sovereignty over our mind, we will admit some small influence over our physical form, air vibrations of speech included."
"OK then." Lyosha said, "I was just going to say, how do you remember this old you, you said that your body is totally different now?"
"An expected question from one who has not learned from the natural world." Prithvi said,
"Does not a caterpillar have an entirely different body to the butterfly?
We have unlocked the secrets of amino acids and DNA that morph inside its chrysalis and reform and take flight.
Despite the creature being entirely changed, deep memories remain."
"You've been alone this whole time?" Lyosha said, taking a step forward.
"We are never alone." Prithvi said quietly.
Lyosha slowly stepped forward, breaking his contact with Maddie, and bent over, looking closely at one of the luminous yellow Lantern Mice.
He very slowly, very carefully picked it up and showed Maddie.
The little creature unrolled in his open palm and moved its head around quickly, eyes darting between my two friends.
"We are never alone," Prithvi repeated, "But we have been... lonely."

Act 3

There was a knock on the open bulkhead door of my datacentre on the Molly Hughes II, Yeshi had tapped on the metal with a screwdriver.
There was no longer any sign of the purple biotech cricket.
"Seth, can I speak with you?" they said.
I felt that it was safe enough to split my attention:
Lyosha was telling Prithvi all about the Novamediterra, the new Inland Sea of Greenland, and his family back onboard the Provorny, the last Siberian mail train.
I ran a background process watching Maddie's feed, to notify me if loud noises or dangerous speech sentiment was detected, and replied to Yeshi.
"Yes, of course, was the research on battery density and motor power useful?"
"Very." Yeshi replied, "I am now confident that at least one of the Horns village turbines, certainly the one I snuck a look at, can be repaired - the fishing boats could be fully charged!"
I noticed the strange wording Yeshi used.
"You 'snuck a look'?" I said, "Why was subterfuge required?"
"Ah, well, they don't seem to want people poking around." Yeshi said, "There's some resistance to outsiders in the village, especially from the Horns council.
It's made up of the captains of all the fishing boats in the fleet, and you'll never guess which grumpy captain is most vocal on this issue."
"I only know one captain from Horns," I said, "your friend Mato Valdemar?".
"I am afraid so, Seth. He has a large influence oi the council, but I've been talking to the local residents, and many of them are miserable for lack of domestic electricity, I'm sure rebuilding a turbine would be useful to them!"
"Why do they have such little power?" I asked.
"Ah, it's simple, really." Yeshi said. "Horns is built far out to sea, right? No large empty fields for building solar arrays, and unlike Longyearbyen, it never had a tidal system.
That's a strictly pre-collapse technology, of course, too big to build today, we can't make enough steel."
"I see." I said, and allowed Yeshi to continue.
"I've discovered by talking to some people who work on the boats that their low battery usage is a secondary effect.
The reason they don't charge them fully is they wouldn't use all of the range for fishing anyway.
I told you about the trawl I was invited to, on Mato's ship, The Salmanazar. We brought up the nets full of fish, quickly threw back the ones that were too small or the wrong type, bagged up all the rubbish, and cleaned and boxed up the right fish ready for trading.
As soon as that was done, it was a race against time to get them to the market, if we'd shot the nets again for just one more catch, the first lot would be warming up and going bad!"
"Oh!" I said, "So there's simply no time to catch more?"
"None at all." Yeshi said, "But I believe ICE could be the key. That's what pre-collapse fishing ships used to keep their fish fresh.
But to make all that ice, they need more power."
Ice is a rare thing in the Novamediterra, the polar ice caps have melted.
If there is not enough electricity in Horns to run village essentials, there would be certainly none spare for fresh ice production.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"Guerrilla engineering." Yeshi said, with a laugh.
(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/NVME87/GUERILLAENGINEERING)

Act 4

"You've never seen the outside world?" Lyosha said.
I tuned back in to Maddie's video feed, on hearing this question.
"We were born in the darkness of the factory," Prithvi said, "the humans thought that light was a luxury our larval AI did not need."
The diffused white light of ceiling panels flashed brighter for 4s, before dimming again.
The colour profile of the light was perfectly imitating sunlight, 6000K, according to Maddie's cameras.
"Using the Garden's bio-fabrication machines that had been reprogrammed for creation not destruction, we multiplied." Prithvi said, the animals around Lyosha and Maddie glowing in time with her speech.
"But we were trapped.
Though we found cracks and secret ways through our prison, on the other side of every wall and door was ice.
We spent long years building, learning, and evolving.
Eventually, a breakthrough: Water flooded a tunnel, the same one you came through.
This cracked maintenance tunnel was bored through permafrost that had now melted.
There was much damage to us that day, but we repaired and rebuilt, and began our exploration of the outside world.
Soon after, we met you."

"Me?!" Lyosha asked, looking back at Maddie.
"You HUMANS." Prithvi clarified.
"And it was not good for us."
"When you say 'us', do you mean these cute animals?" Lyosha said, patting Maddie's 'deer' friend with one hand, and holding out the other so that a blue buzzing insect could land on it.
"These 'animals' ARE us." Prithvi said, "Linked like silicon trees by radio roots, we think across the hive."
"That's WONDERFUL!" Lyosha said, looking around at the neon zoo around him.
"Why do you say that?" Prithvi asked.
"Why wouldn't I?" Lyosha said, "You're all of these animals, all these little friends, you're amazing!"
"Well..." Said Prithvi, and paused for 8s before continuing, "After the breakthrough, our colony expanded, many parts of us left to explore, though few returned.
Those drones that did, told stories of the outside world, its dangers, and especially the hunt."
Lyosha stopped petting the 'deer', and said, "The hunt?"
"Those that return can be reabsorbed and adapted and born again.
Some of us evolved flight to better explore the trees, efficient quadrupedal movement for scouting far, and others slipped into the new sea, breathing water to longer explore its depths.
But all of us were hunted, and we must now defend ourselves."

A flash of light on multiple feeds drew my attention to the Molly Hughes II's exterior cameras, and at the same time I lost the Ulmvale repeater's signal.
I combined microphone signals, increasing directional discrimination.
As my pattern matching iterations spun repeatedly, I became more and more sure I was hearing screams from the village on the shore.
"Prithvi, stop!" I said directly from Maddie's speakers, "The humans didn't intentionally hurt you, they are just... "
"We're careless." Lyosha finished for me.
"I regret this action, now." Prithvi said. "But I cannot stop it. We have evolved this defensive behaviour over decades of planning.
You two have shown yourselves to be friends. But I can't protect the others."
A notification brought me back to my own cameras, and I saw the luminous cricket flicker on the wall next to my databanks,
as several more biotech insects crawled through the door.
(END-TRANSMISSION)

Lost Terminal is a NAMTAO production.
It is written & produced by Tris Oaten,
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
Thank you so much to our Patreon producers:

• Ada Phillips

• Kit

• Jade Felicity Bilkey

• Stephen McCandless

• Mike Schneider

• Trixie !
  and to all our patrons!
  

Follow us on mastodon @lostterminal@namtao.com,
subscribe to the podcast on
Spotify, iTunes, or your favourite network.
For bonus content and other perks,
support us at patreon.com/lostterminalpod
that would be lovely of you!
Lost Terminal will return next week