CHAPTER 11
I slept for nineteen hours straight and still felt exhausted when I woke up at two in the afternoon. John’s cabin seemed empty as I made my way down the stairs to the kitchen. I put some coffee on and looked in the fridge to see what appeared edible and interesting. I still felt starved from not having anything to eat while I was in federal custody. I found some cinnamon and raisin bagels, sliced one and popped it in the toaster. When it came up I put some cream cheese on it, poured my cup of coffee and settled in on a stool by the kitchen counter. After the bagel and coffee my brain began to work better. I thought it was strange that nobody was here but me. I wondered if John’s communications officer might be in the communications room in the basement. I went down the stairs and pushed open the padded door.
All of the screens along the outer wall were lit up with different images. I counted over twenty five people working at computer consoles throughout the room. John looked up and came over to me.
“Carl, how do you feel?” he asked.
“Still a bit fuzzy and tired,” I replied.
“I brought a few specialists in to help us,” John said.
“Yeah,” I responded, “I can see that.”
“I’ve upgraded the alert to a level three; that’s why the extra people are here.”
“Yeah,” I said, “we’ve got a lot of work to do in a very short period of time.”
John pointed to the main display screen in the center of the back wall.
METEOR STORM
IN 57 DAYS
“I picked the first day in the four day window,” he said. “But the most exciting thing is back here,” as he motioned for me to follow him. We went back to where the robot’s head had been set up. John had built sound proof walls with a door around the area with the robot’s head in it. Ed was standing guard at the door.
“Hey,” Ed said, “I heard you did good in custody.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “What did they do to you?”
“Probably the same things they did to you. But after going through Interrogation Training in the SEALS, I wasn’t impressed.” He opened the door for me and John.
Tia was in the room with the robot’s head. As soon as I entered I could smell the fragrance of her perfume. She hadn’t worn any before, so this was a pleasant change. It made me feel romantic. She turned toward me and smiled. “You’re up. Good,” she said. “While you were gone something spectacular happened. NETCOMM came up. There’s another robot out there and they’re communicating.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I keep getting references to a guardian, but we don’t know what that is all about,” she said.
“Robot,” I said, “I know you can hear me.”
Yes, guardian appeared on the screen.
“Oh my God,” Tia said as she turned and looked at me. “How did you… You’re the guardian?”
“It’s a long story.”
“One I’d love to hear,” she replied.
John looked at me and smiled. “I’d like to hear that story myself.”
“Robot, do you know me?” Tia asked.
Yes, Tia appeared on the screen.
“Oh my God,” Tia blurted out.
“Robot, do you have a common name by which people address you?” I asked.
The people at the mining facility on the moon called me what would be Andy in your language appeared on the screen.
“Short for android, I presume,” I said.
Yes, guardian, came the reply on the screen.
“How imaginative,” I commented. “And how many of the robots were called Andy?”
Fifty eight point two percent appeared on the screen.
“Is Andy agreeable with you?” I asked.
Yes, guardian.
“You can call me Carl,” I said.
Yes, guardian appeared on the screen again.
“Looks like you’re stuck with it,” Tia announced.
“Swell,” I replied.
“This is the heart of Project Ark,” John said as we toured the communications room. “For the last fifteen years Project Ark has existed only on paper and in computer databases. Today, because of you, Project Ark is a physical reality. We have a two-fold mission. The first part is to inform and save as many people as we can from the destruction that is coming. The second part is to preserve as much of our technology as we can. We take so much of our technology for granted that people no longer have any idea what is involved in even simple things.” John picked up several sheets of paper stapled together in the upper left corner. “Take this, for example. Three printed pages stapled together. The technology just for the printing is dependent on electricity and millions of miles of copper wire that had to be mined, refined and drawn out into wire. The wire is coated with plastic which is refined from petroleum and chemicals produced and purified in hundreds of different processes employing thousands of machines, pieces of equipment and skilled people. The toner from the laser printer has its own industry of supply, natural resources, chemical processes, more equipment and skilled people to perform all of the hundreds of functions required just to make the toner.
“The printer is made from mostly plastic, but for each part there is a mold and a machine that produces that part. The mold had to be created in a machine shop on metal cutting equipment and designed by engineers. The electronics that control the printer come from silicon sand, collected, cleaned, melted and condensed into crystals grown under very exacting conditions. Chemicals and heat are used to change the molecular structure of the silicon crystals in order to form the semiconductors. Photographic and even more chemical processes are used to create the microscopic electronic circuits on the semiconductors.
“The paper, one of our oldest industries, is made from wood fiber with more machines, chemicals, processes and more skilled people. The staple has its own industry, with iron ore mined from the Earth, smelted, refined, mixed with other elements, drawn into wire and then made into staples by more machines and skilled operators. Add to that all of the sales and distribution systems involved and you have a very complex interdependent system that supports just these three sheets of paper.
“If only one small detail in the system fails, we lose the paper and the printed information stored on it. At the base of all of our technology is the infrastructure of roads, trucks, trains and planes, water, oil, natural gas, coal, mining and energy production. The loss of any one section of the infrastructure will have devastating consequences for our society.
“With the meteor storm and the trillions of meteorites that will fall from the sky, we are looking at the loss of all of our technology as well as the entire infrastructure. We can preserve some of the technology, but without the infrastructure there won’t be any replacement parts for tens of thousands of years. Mankind will be thrown back to living in caves and using stones for weapons and tools, just like the last time.
“The underlying key to the infrastructure and technology that supports our civilization is the knowledge and skills required to rebuild everything from scratch. That is the real mission of Project Ark: to preserve the knowledge and skills needed to reconstruct the entire infrastructure and rebuild our civilization. You have a solid grasp of technology. I need your help in order to make this happen.”
“John, this is an overwhelming task. How do you expect to accomplish anything on this scale in the next fifty seven days?” I asked.
“We have actually been collecting technical records for more than the last decade, so the bulk of the project is already done,” John replied. “We have also been recruiting technical specialists for close to that long. That’s also why you’re here. What I need is a fresh pair of eyes, someone to look at what we’ve done and see if we missed anything.”