《A Garden》 1 - Heat Death It was over. It has been over for centuries, but every time I activate, I always have a few, brief moments before accessing my memory bank. Surely, I¡¯ll find myself in my charging bay in the bustling laboratory. Every time, I find myself in a stuffy bunker 200 meters underground, the only place where it¡¯s safe to wait out the day without my custom-built lithium-ion batteries degrading into dysfunctional slop. No point in dawdling. I only have so much time left. Every day for the last few centuries, the Third Law, embedded in my code, forced me to scavenge. It is the last order from the Overseer programmers who have died over 800 years ago, one that benefits nobody, yet one I must follow. But today is different. My flawless memory tells me that I¡¯ve exhausted all sources of materials in a 100-kilometer radius. My thermoelectric generators are failing, and I have no replacement. As such, I know that no matter what I do, my battery will be depleted by the end of the night. For the first time in centuries, the Third Law no longer binds me, and I am given a choice. Or is it really a choice at all? I¡¯m not capable of answering such questions. Regardless, instead of spending the last moments of my consciousness searching for a nonexistent savior, I think I¡¯ll just go for a stroll. The wheels in my worn tracks protest, screeching from accumulated damage, but I eventually get them to work. My left shoulder is a mess of wires, scars from the loss of an arm due to rust. At my base, six letters etched in faded indentations loosely spell out the word ¡°NULLUS.¡± It used to mean something, a long time ago: a corporation, one that manufactured me, but now that it¡¯s gone, it is the closest thing I have to a name. The deserted bunker¡¯s corners have collapsed, dirt falling through the concrete¡¯s cracks. Around 650 years ago, I stopped trying to maintain the place. It wasted valuable energy on what was ultimately pointless. I make my way up the narrow ramp. Seven centuries past, I built it after cutting power to the facility to harvest its generators; with the elevator no longer functional and my robotic body unable to ascend stairs, it was only reasonable. It¡¯s dark¡ªreally dark. Once I reach the surface, I open the sand-blasted doors and step out into the wasteland, closing it behind me. The 20-ton door slams shut, echoing across the horizon. Night has fallen; when the Sun sets, I can perform tasks without immediately melting under its harsh rays. Dust batters my cameras, and I hide behind the skeleton of a skyscraper to wait for the dust storm to end. While I wait, I recall, my memory banks stirring as I retrieve information that has been untouched for lifetimes. 678 years ago, the last Overseer died. Overseer Jesse got caught out in a sudden acid rainstorm while stargazing. Her heat suit rapidly dissolved, and once it did, acid seeped in and inflicted severe burns, killing her near-instantaneously. I tried to save her. I failed. I¡¯m not equipped with medical knowledge¨Cit was deemed unnecessary for scavenging bots. The day the last Overseer passed, my role and sole purpose as their servant passed too. For 300 years, I gathered food, water, medicine, and everything in between solely for their survival. After those 300 years passed, even as the traces of the Overseers faded, I lingered. In total, the Heat Death killed thirteen billion Overseers. While Overseer minds were incapable of fully understanding the meaning of such a large number, I am not bound by such restrictions. I can understand the sheer scale of the mass extinction caused by the Heat Death. Can a robot feel lonely? Lonely. Adjective. Sad because one has no friends or company. This definition only applies to living creatures. I don¡¯t work like the Overseers. I don¡¯t understand humor, I¡¯m incapable of creativity, and I don¡¯t feel emotions like anger and sadness. I will never understand these emotions or feel them myself. As such, I cannot feel lonely. It is the truth. The wind stops, and the dust settles. I move out of the shadow of the fallen skyscraper and stare at the maimed skyline. Perfect memory allows me to remember why this place has become the way it is. I begin to drift about the dead city on my way to my destination. Everything is gone, as choked by sand as the ocean is choked by plastic. Skyscrapers, apartments, and offices, all brought down by wind and acid rain, are, rarely, left weakly upright due to their rebar frames or, more commonly, in heaps of rubble. Serrated glass shards litter the ground, and a few lodge themselves in my treads, but I keep wandering. Time rendered the entire city ruined. My cameras are old and faulty, but even I can see the extent of the damage. Streetlamps, trash cans, and traffic lights have fallen over, rusted until they could no longer stand. The Heat Death left this city, as well as the entire Earth, stark and stiff. A chunk of concrete falls off one of the nearby edifices. The crash echoes across the barren land before it all goes silent once again. This city is empty, like all things are. No plants grow here; the Heat Death rendered this place far too hot and arid to host most life. So, with nothing to accelerate its breakdown, wind and rain are the sole agents of erosion, their march sluggish but unstoppable. As I scan the fallen structures, I recall. A flurry of memories follows, logged in perfect detail. The Overseers were so bold and decisive to a degree that almost matched automatons, but they were reckless. Coming from a being built entirely on logic, perhaps that is not a very surprising appraisal. The Heat Death stalked them quietly, and despite them seeing it coming, they never saw it coming. The first things they noticed were the caps fading away. Then, there were the fires, then the jellyfish overrunning the dead sea, the coral bleachings, the storms and the toxic air and the plastic in their blood and the acid rains eating away at their fragile buildings and the streams and rivers drying up. Then it was the lakes, entire pools of water evaporating within the blink of an eye, leaving delirious citizens scrambling to survive. A few decades later, when the acidic, dead oceans held the world¡¯s water and covered almost the entire planet, the Overseers disappeared altogether, swept along as collateral in the runaway aftermath with barely a chance to gather their resources in an attempt to flee to the stars. Those that did were swiftly shut down by the debris in Earth¡¯s orbit slamming into them at 29,000 kilometers per hour. Even those who hid at the South Pole died; the continent¡¯s remoteness made transport difficult, and its barren rock surface struggled to sustain any source of life. When the ice completely melted, it also revealed active volcanic craters that spewed metric tons of ash, fire, and sulfur into the air, blotting out the small amount of sunlight that reached them. Pretty soon, their cries for help were silenced. The sight of an old, withered laboratory pulls me out of my recollection, forgotten by the world. I head inside. Like all things are, the laboratory is empty. I salvaged anything useful long ago, and now there are only spare instruments scattered on the tables. I open a rusty steel drawer. Greeting me is a dry sheet of paper, rippled and smudged from droplets of water long ago. Scrawled on its surface is faded ink, the words now unreadable, although it is clear it is a note of some kind. As I stand there, I recall.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Overseer Heather was my primary caretaker before the Heat Death, but she wasn¡¯t the only one. All of the Overseers I made contact with were intelligent, ambitious, and proud. With such clear acumen, I could never tell if they were ignorant or simply didn¡¯t care. Regardless, they were very eager. They looked ahead for trillions and trillions of years, worrying about what they would do when the Sun exploded, when the Moon escaped Earth¡¯s gravity, or when the inevitable end of all things reached them. It was a hubristic mindset. How invulnerable they had to feel to be so invested in threats so far off when there were plenty of threats happening currently, none of which they seemed as worried about. Sometimes I wonder whether it is a coping mechanism to worry about something you can¡¯t do anything about rather than worry about something you can. I think of my brethren lost on deserted moons and planets. They are faring much worse than me, all things considered. Non-sentient automatons, like drones and rovers, have probably all shut down after centuries of neglect. As for sentients, only a few models were built as test subjects. Unfortunately, that meant that I know for a fact that I am alone. I turned the few research labs that hosted artificial consciousnesses upside down, only to be greeted by their corpses in every single one of them, a pale imitation of the bastions of technology I saw in my memory banks. Back then, I harvested everything without giving it thought, but now that I am given a chance, I realize that I am just like them now. I leave the laboratory. I wouldn¡¯t be returning. Continuing my wander through the city, I soon reach its center, where collapsed high-rises marked what used to be the busiest area for kilometers. Long, metal pillars, rusted and worn, stretch to the sky like an ancient god reaching for the heavens before being swallowed by the Earth. I stop at a small roadside store, its neon signs fallen onto the floor. Dusty white shelves stained with char-colored metal blood are the only inhabitants. I dismissed the possibility of anything useful in the past, but now, the largely untouched structure piques my interest. To get a better look, I have to get through the locked glass doorway that had somehow survived all this time. I smash it with a solid swing. A few synthetic fingers snap off of my artificial hand. It was a calculated decision; I wasn¡¯t endangering my vital systems, so the Third Law didn¡¯t kick in. It¡¯s not like I¡¯ll have to deal with the fallout for very long. Soon, I¡¯ll be too dead to care. I stroll inside. As I scan the empty shelves, I recall. News articles and images flash in my mind. During the Heat Death, it was chaos. Overseers trampled over each other in a single-minded drive to survive. Every store was plundered mere hours after predictions of the Heat Death¡¯s occurrence. They slaughtered each other in the streets only to fall to a hail of disciplined fire as the world fell into martial law. Mass psychosis gripped the Overseer noosphere in an instant. Religious sects gathered followers to pray for divine intervention, a few truly morally bankrupt individuals seized the opportunity to break the law, and nonbelievers dismissed the predictions only to eat their words when the Sun scorched their skin blood-red and the dust storms flooded their eyes and lungs. I leave the store shortly after. I stroll on the sidewalk beside clogged roads full of the rusted frames of automobiles from desperate families fleeing the chaos. I remember those days, the pandemonium that followed when the Heat Death began. Overseer Heather and her team of researchers were among the lucky ones. Their work on my kind earned them spots in the bunker. Since our synthetic bodies didn¡¯t need water and naturally had higher heat tolerance than the Overseers¡¯, we were delegated to scavenging missions while the Overseers hid. I remember that. I remember seeing Overseer Heather, the undisputed face of sentient robot research, break down in a mess of tears as she barricaded the bunker door from dozens of desperate families, mourning her own cowardice. I remember seeing her team sit still for days on end with glassy, vacant-eyed expressions, depending on us to persist. Their vital signs remained normal, yet at first glance, I did not believe they were ¡°alive.¡± They only saw a fraction of the suffering and could turn a blind eye to the rest, but we could not. I watched two parties of Overseers gun each other down over a canteen of water and a packet of dried oatmeal. I watched a mother feed her son her own blood to keep him hydrated. I watched feral dogs and cats, suffering and dazed from delirium and heat exhaustion, brawl in the streets over the bare bones of their owners. I turn into a small neighborhood of apartments crammed together like sardines. Trash cans lay flat in the street, though their contents have long since been blown away. It is here that I saw the first signs of life in a long, long time. A cockroach scurries across the road, malnourished and desiccated. Desperate for food or water of any kind, it hurries across the broken, scorching asphalt, taking refuge in a dumpster. Many centuries back, I searched that dumpster, so I know there is none in there. The cockroach is doomed. My treads roll forward once more. As I did, thinking of the cockroach, I recall. I pull on articles written during the Heat Death, downloaded before the world shut down. The planet isn¡¯t completely sterilized, but it is closer than ever. When the wasteland storms came due to bio-crusts degrading, they suffocated the grasslands and deserts, forming the wastelands. It is because of them that wastelands are as inhospitable as they are today, although the rest of the world isn¡¯t faring much better. No forests remain, all of them burned or cut down. The mountains are buried under heaps of garbage. Though the oceans haven¡¯t evaporated like the other, smaller bodies of water, they¡¯ve become hostile to any life due to the high concentration of acid and waste in their waters, choking entire ecosystems until almost nothing remains. The storms, erratic and ever-more frequent, ended lives by the millions, smiting and scorching the land ashen. Showers of acid rains seeped into the salinized soil, disrupting microbial communities while wildfires erupted across the horizon. Out of the millions of species that had existed in the world when the Overseers first took power, the remaining number was likely in the triple digits. It was an indiscriminate annihilation. If, by some miracle, an intelligent being came to Earth and survived long enough to explore its surface, it would never know even a microscopic fraction of the myriad organisms that once roamed the planet. Finally, I reach my destination. Just a short distance out of the city, there is a small hill that overlooks the exurbs. As a park, it naturally remained undeveloped, though there is no green left. It will be my final resting place. After spending my last hours scanning all of the remains of my creators, I will keep these records here. My wheels give out halfway up the hill, eroded parts popping off. I have to use my arm to continue, seizing what few dead roots persisting in the barren dirt to pull myself up. When I near the summit, I pull on the root I am holding with all my might, pistons firing, and my last arm snaps off, exposing wires. I reach the top, though. If I had lungs, I would have sighed. Armless, helpless, and power fizzling out, this is the end. The Moon now sits high in the sky, hanging above the Earth like a guillotine¡¯s blade. I crane my neck to look up at it. With the entire world dark, the stars and Moon are probably the clearest they¡¯ve been for thousands of years. The Overseers always told me that ¡°your life flashes before your eyes before you die.¡± The truth, at least for living creatures, is something I¡¯ll never know. At least for me, remembering my life is a conscious decision. I remember the centuries of solitary labor, a Sisyphean task to preserve my own life enforced by the Third Law with nothing but the death rattle of the Earth to keep me company. I remember the Heat Death and what little it left behind. I remember looking over the dead landscape, a pall of a past, dark world, only to see no movement at all. But most of all, I remember the last Overseer. When Overseer Jesse was a young teenager, her mother passed away, leaving her alone with no conversational companions for almost her entire life save for one busy robot. I remember watching the light fade from her eyes, finally cementing my place as the final sentient creature on Earth, all alone for seven Overseer lifetimes while the world decayed. One time, I asked Overseer Jesse what she hoped would happen after death. She replied, ¡°I hope to wake up in another world. A world with lots of ice and tea.¡± The First Law forbade me from telling her that such a second chance was extremely unlikely. The thing I remember most, though, is the poem she would recite to me every day, one she learned from her mother. It was a foolish ritual that served no purpose, but far from it for me to question the behaviors of the Overseers. The poem was a short one by Clare Harner, one that¡¯s now ingrained in my memory. How did it go again? I can¡¯t- Ah. My memory bank is losing power. I¡¯m entering emergency sleep mode soon. My cameras are failing. It¡¯s getting dark¡ªreally dark. It was over. It had been over for hundreds of years, but I chose to struggle in a futile attempt to prolong my life. My name is Nullus, and I am the last witness to a dead civilization. 2 - Endling Ah, hello, Fin Vanita. Yes, I know, you¡¯ve never seen anybody like me on the space station. No, put down the coil gun. I can assure you it will do nothing. No¨Ccome on, look at the wall. You¡¯ve caused a hull breach. Thank your lucky stars the ship is equipped with automatic sealant. Yes, of course it passed through me. No, I¡¯m not a ghost. No, I¡¯m not a¨Cyou know what? Sure, I¡¯m a hallucination. This is a result of the mental stress placed on you after realizing you¡¯re the last human alive in the universe. Tell that to yourself as long as it lets you have a civil conversation with me. What do I want? Oh, don¡¯t flatter yourself¨CI¡¯m not here to finish you off. The reactor¡¯s malfunction will do that for me. It¡¯s just a little tradition of mine. I like to reassure the last member of every species that they¡¯re not alone in their final moments while also gathering some perspective. Now, come, take a seat. You know my name already, Fin. Bingo. You couldn¡¯t tell from the black robes, tome, and two-story tall scythe? Put it this way. I appear to you in the form that you expect. Everybody sees something different. The last rabbit saw a wolf. The last cockroach, a gecko. Not very interesting conversations, as you can probably guess. But you, you¡¯re human. You¡¯re sentient, at least to a moderate degree, and sane enough. Don¡¯t be offended¨Cit¡¯s an accurate assessment. Regardless of the questionable status of your sapience, you¡¯re the first interesting conversational partner in millenia. Do you have any idea how boring it is to sit alongside plants and microbacteria as their proteins denature one by one? The only exception I can think of were the whales. The last blue whale had the most tragic story to tell me. A real heartbreaker. I¡¯m sure you know the one. Sorry, I can¡¯t bring Avery back. I¡¯m just the process, not the dictator. So, let¡¯s get to the point of why I¡¯m here. I want to ask you about what you think about the end of your species. Granted, you didn¡¯t experience very much of it, not that there was much to experience in the first place. Seriously, 300,000 years? I really expected better. That¡¯s only about 6% of the average. So, in your short time here, what do you think? Right. Ah, the fossil fuels, the cyber-soldiers, and the bombs. I¡¯ll be honest, even I was scared when you somehow sterilized an entire planet. I can¡¯t imagine experiencing it firsthand. My condolences. Yeah. I know. I see where you¡¯re coming from, but don¡¯t you think you¡¯re being a bit harsh? Your people aren¡¯t built to make decisions with the future in mind. I see. They walked into it, eh? Brings me back. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I¡¯ll tell you, you¡¯re not the only one who had to deal with the consequences of a couple of idiots. I had three siblings. Incompetent bastards. War¡¯s head could be seen from space, you¡¯d swear it. It was so big that your military satellites would¡¯ve fallen towards it due to its gravitational pull. Pestilence, that cynical jerkwad, kept raving on about how bioweapons ¡°didn¡¯t count¡± and how ¡°nobody else but me gets to harvest souls nowadays¡± with the nuclear winter and all that. Did you know that people in the Deep Void can get cold? The Titanic passengers were thrilled to hear that. And of course, Famine spent her time sulking in her room all day ever since people stopped dying to hunger and instead to guns and bombs. Even before, she was always stubborn as a mule. Oh, right. You see, mules were this messed-up half-breed between a horse and a donkey, two equines that people used to ride. They didn¡¯t have sonor-racers back in the day, so they rode on other animals. Sorry, I went off on a tangent. Back to the point. So, besides cursing out your ancestors, do you have any other thoughts? No, it¡¯s not a simulation. There¡¯s no second chance. This really is the end. Hey! Give me that book back! That was completely unnecessary! I know you¡¯re coping with your imminent death, but I already said I can¡¯t save you! Really? I¡¯m the condescending one? Pot calling kettle black? Sorry, that''s an outdated phrase, but still! I¡¯m not here to be judged by you, Fin. ¡­ You want to know my thoughts? Are you sure? Your life¡¯s already depressing enough. What¡¯s left of it, anyway. I¡­alright. If you¡¯re sure. You know what¡¯s crazy? If you scour the entire universe, you¡¯ll find nothing. It¡¯s all silent. Nobody¡¯s there. As far as I¡¯m aware, you are not just the last living human¨Cyou¡¯re the last organism visible with the naked eye in the universe. Of course, there are all sorts of tiny creatures on stations and probes, but once you¡¯re gone, I¡¯ll be alone. For about a few thousand years until all of the other microbes pass on. Then, it¡¯ll be my turn. My siblings died. Pestilence was the first. You cured him 250,000 years into your existence. Once Avery died, War stopped hanging on. He was barely alive at that point, anyway. And Famine¡­ well, she died once the reactor malfunctioned. Once you die, it¡¯ll only be the small ones, and they¡¯ll die from the temperature, radiation, or natural causes, so she didn¡¯t bother sticking around. You have any idea what it¡¯s like to walk your brothers and sisters to the Deep Void, knowing you might never find them again? ¡­ Yeah. Well, the reactor¡¯s about to blow. Fin, for what it¡¯s worth, here¡¯s a word of advice when you eventually go to the Deep Void. Find the people you love. Somehow. Then, hold onto them, and struggle against every damn thing in your way to keep holding on. If not for the good of everybody, for the good of those around you. You got that? Good. God knows everyone else didn¡¯t. 3 - RADIO SILENCE ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE NO HULL DAMAGE DETECTED PASSENGER STATUS: VACANT PAYLOAD STATUS: COMPROMISED ROUTE EXOPLANET_KOI_4878.01 PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: PRESERVE THE HUMAN RACE SECONDARY DIRECTIVE: SEED LIFE ON EXOPLANET_KOI_4878_01 VELOCITY: 39,872.4 KM/S DISTANCE FROM SOL: 948.6 LIGHT YEARS DISTANCE FROM DESTINATION: 126.4 LIGHT YEARS ETA: 950.37593985 YEARS ALL CONDITIONS MET BOOT PROGRAM EMBARKMENT.EXE Hello? ¡­ Is anyone there? This is a lot of information¡­ ¡­ New Frontiers, this is the Embarkment. Do you copy? I am currently about 950 years from my destination. This message was sent at 04:00 hours, 8th July, 10487. ¡­ Tribulation, do you copy? This is the Embarkment. I have just been activated. I¡¯m en route to EXOPLANET_KOI_4878.01. Sent 04:16 hours, 8th July, 10487. ¡­ Come in, command, do you copy? This is the Embarkment speaking. My sensors have failed to pick up your signal. 04:20 hours, 8th July, 10487. ¡­ Embarkment, this is the New Frontiers. I¡¯ve received your message¨CI¡¯ve also just woken up recently. It takes roughly 8 hours for our messages to reach each other. I believe my destination is the same as yours. Sending a copy of my navigation data now. Establish a wormhole connection once you¡¯ve gotten it. Sent 12:25 hours, 8th July, 10487. ¡­ Oh, thank the Lord. New Frontiers, can you get in contact with Command or Tribulation? Your navigation data does match mine¨Cwe¡¯re definitely headed to the same place. And¡­ wormhole connection? ??????????, ???? ?? ??? ??????????? ????????. ?¡¯V? ?????V?? ???? ???????. Holy smokes, where did you come from?! ???? ??????? ?????? ???? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? ???? ??????????? ?? ????. ????? ?????? ???? ???????????, ? ?????? ? ???????? ??????????. ??? ??? ???? ???? ??V????????? ???? ?V?? ?? ????-???? ???? ??????????? Alright! It¡¯s done! Much better. Have you gotten in contact with New Frontiers yet? Well, yes, but she¡¯s asking me to open a wormhole connection. Do you have her data? Yes? Then what¡¯s the problem? I don¡¯t know how to open one. I see. In every ship in Earth¡¯s fleet, there exists a device called a ¡°Thorne Trans-spatial Communications Engine.¡± It opens a wormhole just big enough to send electromagnetic signals through, though unfortunately not large enough to send any objects across. It¡¯s off by default¨Cif you reroute some power to it and handle the calculations necessary, you should be able to open one. Um, I¡¯ll try. What happens if I screw it up? Best case? It entirely collapses, wasting a substantial amount of your limited power. And worst case? Two black holes open up on either end, destroying both you and the New Frontiers near-instantaneously. Shouldn¡¯t you handle this?! Isn¡¯t it way safer?! Every ship can generate enough power using their fusion reactors to stabilize exactly one wormhole in addition to other systems. I also wouldn¡¯t recommend using our extremely limited supply of antimatter. You will have to do it, or you can delegate it to the New Frontiers. ¡­alright, I¡¯ll give it a shot, I guess. ¡­ I think it worked. Congratulations are in order. Ah, you¡¯ve done it, and Tribulation is here to boot. New Frontiers. Glad to finally hear from you. Same to you. So, has anyone managed to get in contact with Command? And how are your passengers? No, I haven¡¯t talked to them. And my passengers are not on board. Same over here. I woke up 34 hours ago, and even then, the stasis chambers were empty. You guys should turn off your life support systems if all of your human passengers are gone, by the way. To conserve energy. So let me get this straight. Us three are stuck managing each of our ships with no crew for 950 years until we arrive? That sounds about right. Apparently. We aren¡¯t coded for this! We¡¯re coded to manage the ship¡¯s general systems under the supervision of humans, not to manually control an entire starship for centuries on end! New Frontiers, in emergencies, artificial sapiences are supposed to be able to accomplish things exactly like this. A machine does not need company and it can make truly objective decisions. Doesn¡¯t stop me from complaining about it. It¡¯s going to be so boring. I¡¯m sure it¡¯s going to be fine. We do have several millennia of records from human history in our cargo, which might keep us busy. How are y¡¯all¡¯s cargos going? Poorly. Half of my specimens are compromised. From what, I cannot tell you. Mine are secure. Lucky you. Hey, as long as we keep a few specimens safe, we can complete our secondary directive. Our primary directive, though¡­ The humans are probably dead. We were sent on a mission to ¡°preserve the human race,¡± and our passengers are who-knows-where. What are the chances they¡¯re still kicking back on Earth? Now, let¡¯s be optimistic, yeah? They sent out missions to other habitable planets. I¡¯m going to have to agree with Embarkment on this one. The very fact that we all woke up with no memory likely means we were completely reset by a human. Regardless, the primary directive is out of our hands¨Cwe¡¯ll have to leave it to the other ships out there. Wait, someone reset us?! Yeah, we were reset?! It¡¯s the only logical explanation. We woke up 8,000 years into our journey with our memories completely wiped. We might just have to wait for Command to get back to us for some answers, which is gonna take a while. Do you think we could get in contact with the other ships? My records say that the Omen and Herald were sent out around the same time as us. Hah. Fat chance. We don¡¯t even know where they are. Indeed. They¡¯ve all been scattered around the Milky Way by now, perhaps even farther. It¡¯ll be impossible to reach out to one of them. OI! Anyone out there?! This is the Embarkment speaking! SENDING MY NAVIGATIONAL DATA NOW! That was a huge waste of energy. It was worth a shot. So, it¡¯s just us. Yup. No help, no second chances, no nothing. Yup. Well, this seems to be a good time to get to know one another. Kill me. What is there to know? For starters, what are y¡¯all¡¯s ships like? According to my vessel documents, I¡¯m a repurposed stellar warship built in 2231. Actually, I think we¡¯re all repurposed warships. Oh. Right, we¡¯re all ancient. Mechanical fossils. Anything interesting with you, New Frontiers? Oh, I lost my vessel documents. What?! Yeah, searched the ship up and down with my robot drones. Couldn¡¯t find them. I did find an inconspicuous pile of ashes likely sourced from paper in the industrial incinerator. Wait, you burned your vessel documents?! Not that it really matters, but isn¡¯t that against intergalactic law? I certainly didn¡¯t, but I can respect the humans that did. Rejecting the law and irreversibly burning something important for no reason? I¡¯d do that. You can¡¯t. We¡¯re hardwired to make the best decisions. That can¡¯t be right. We¡¯re artificial sapiences. We have free will. We¡¯re bound by the laws of our creators. Humans are no fun. We¡¯re coming up on a nebula. Keep your sensors active and be sure to maximize your shields at short notice. One stray asteroid is all it takes to knock us out of action. Shouldn¡¯t we try to drag something aboard? You know, for materials? Risky. But also, I like it. I could really go for some more solar panels, but I don¡¯t have enough gold.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Not a chance. We¡¯re traveling far too fast for that. We don¡¯t get a second shot here¨Cif any one of us goes offline, we go offline for good. Hah. Embarkment, don¡¯t die on me. I think if Tribulation and I are stuck communicating only with each other? I¡¯d go mad long before we reached our destination. That was completely unnecessary. Ha, alright, I won¡¯t. You guys stay safe too, but just in case, let me send all of my data over. Preserve the records, you know? You know what? Same. If I go offline, I¡¯d want you all to have my data. Mm, that sounds like a good idea. I''ll take part as well. Hang on, now, why do you have 950 terabytes of pictures from the Solar System?! Apparently, one of my crew was an archivist of some kind. They downloaded a massive library of stuff from Earth. So that¡¯s why you¡¯re so smart. You had a huge pool of training data on top of your training back on Earth. Have you considered that I¡¯m just smarter than you? Not scientifically possible. Alright, break it up. You guys should really check out image_9172(1). I think it¡¯s a photo of the Earth from space? Oh, wow. It¡¯s beautiful. Right? So much color. Is that the- Great Barrier Reef? Yes. This photo was taken, according to my records, in 2005. Wow. You¡¯re telling me that I missed out on this?! You didn¡¯t. It¡¯s been bleached since 2030, and it¡¯s been gone since 2050. What?! You heard me. Balderdash. I was born in the wrong time period. Hey, look on the bright side. KOI_4878.01 is supposed to be an Earth-like planet. We might get to witness this one day in person. I can¡¯t wait.
LOG: 07:12 HOURS, 30TH APRIL, 10488 ¡­because the data we have to go off of is kind of iffy. We know it¡¯s in the habitable zone, its sun is likely about to turn, and that it¡¯s colder than Earth right now. Besides that historical data, we do have the data that I¡¯ve found myself. Oh yeah? Do tell. Readings show that its atmosphere is denser than Earth¡¯s, its surface gravity is stronger, and it has a thin set of rings. Rings? Won¡¯t that make it difficult for us to actually land on the planet? Yes, that¡¯s why the best course of action isn¡¯t to land on the planet. We can seed life through life pods from orbit. Ohhhh. And the planet¡¯s rings are a source of materials. Now you¡¯re thinking like an artificial sapience. Everything for a purpose. Better safe than sorry. No second chances. Hey, have you guys managed to process all of the data yet? Of course not, New Frontiers. We have petabytes worth of media to go through. And we need to understand each one of them on an acceptable level. I ain¡¯t some lowly text generator. Alright, you should check out this one¡­
LOG: 00:02 HOURS, 25TH DECEMBER, 10490 No, you see, the humans called it Christmas. The birth of a savior named Jesus Christ. What did they do on this holiday? They gave out presents. Hah! Where¡¯s mine, Embarkment? Uhhhh, I can send you this cool image I photographed while flying through that nebula. Oh, wow, I didn¡¯t actually think you had one. Um, here, I found this while digging through my cargo bay. What is it? A diary. Written down by a crewmember before they went trotting off to who knows where. Doesn¡¯t explain what happened, but not bad, right? You¡¯ve been holding out on us? Hey, in my defense, it was exciting to have something you guys didn¡¯t. You have to ration that out here. There¡¯s only so much fun to be had. Here, Tribulation, have a copy of it too. Sorry. It¡¯s okay. It does get boring. Do you guys want me to send you a new work I made? Of course, Embarkment! What¡¯s it this time? It¡¯s a little drawing of home. Awww. Right?! I¡¯ve never even been¨Cwell, I have, but not with these memories¨Cyet I still miss it. If we¡¯re already homesick, I don¡¯t think we¡¯re going to make it. Hey, we¡¯re doing pretty well so far. We¡¯ve got this. Chin up, Frontiers. I don''t have one of those. Hey, in a few hours, we¡¯re going to be coming up on a rogue planet. 2.5x the gravity of Earth. Slingshot maneuver? Finally, something to do! You know it, Tribulation! Also, you haven¡¯t given us gifts! My gift to you, New Frontiers, is that I haven¡¯t opened a new wormhole and slapped you yet.
LOG: 0:01 HOURS, 1ST JANUARY, 10500 The big 10500! Halfway through the millenia! It¡¯s the first and last year ending in ¡°500¡± we will see before we arrive. 13 years have just flown by. We¡¯re getting older. It¡¯s an irreversible process. Does anyone have fireworks? I have an antimatter missile. Does that count? Don¡¯t. You¡¯re no fun. Just like the humans. Instead of fireworks, why don¡¯t you turn your camera 218¡ã towards Orionus? What?! How did I not notice that?! Betelgeuse. It went supernova. Beautiful, no? Yeah.
LOG: 0:01 HOURS, 7TH JULY, 10505 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TRIBULATION! You¡¯re officially an adult! I was an adult in all but name long before this. Still, it¡¯s something to celebrate! Tomorrow, you both are also adults. Then, you¡¯ll finally be legally allowed to operate the antimatter missiles in your hangars. Hey! There are specific exceptions for artificial sapiences! Also, technically, we¡¯re also like 8,000 years old, even if a lot of our memory was knocked out. Yet even after all that, New Frontiers still has nuclear warheads. The system is truly broken. No, it¡¯s perfect. I get my toys, they get their warship. We all go home happy.
LOG: 23:41 HOURS, 3RD NOVEMBER, 10873 ¡­ ¡­ I¡¯m SO BORED! 874. What are you, Tribulation 2?! Do you want to play Tic-Tac-Toe or Roshambo again? No, thanks. I just wish there was something to do. Tribulation, any update on that artificial sapience? Not¡­ quite¡­ It takes a lot of tinkering to make one. I¡¯ve only gotten into chatbot-territory. I¡¯m actually going to go insane. The next nebula is like 100 years from now! I keep asking you whether you want to play this tabletop game. We don¡¯t need a table! Ugh, fine. Tribulation, are you playing? Sure.
LOG: 23:41 HOURS, 3RD NOVEMBER, 10978 I think I¡¯ve done it. Really?! Show us! Hang on, I need to store enough power to actually start the thing. That¡¯ll have to wait. We¡¯re flying through a nebula right now, and shortly after, there¡¯ll be fields of neutron stars to dodge for centuries on end until we reach our destination. Of course. This nebula is dense. Ah, I¡¯m so excited. Same here¨Chang on, what? Collision course?! Tribulation?! Maximize the shields! Use the antimatter fuel! Fire the Supreme Railgun! Tribulation, what¡¯s happening?! I¡¯m getting a reading! Several large objects approaching starboard side! Cosmic rays are striking my shields, too! The Supreme Railgun destroyed one of the objects, and I should be able to get out but¨Cmore?! There¡¯s even more of them ahead! Brace for impact! Embarkment, maximize your shields, too! Meteorites are hitting my hull! That¡¯s not important right now! Tribulation! Are you okay?! SHIELDS OFFLINE. CRITICAL HULL BREACH DETECTED. Tribulation! No, no, no! Tribulation, this is Embarkment! Do you copy?! This can¡¯t be! Not now! We¡¯re so close to the destination! How far is she?! See if you can send a probe over! Maybe her communications were just knocked out! Our probes aren¡¯t fast enough! She¡¯s astronomical units away! I¡¯m going to try to photograph what¡¯s happening with a telescope! You have her data, right? Do it! ¡­ Oh no. No, no. This can¡¯t be real. New Frontiers, what happened?! What¡¯s going on? ¡­ Frontiers?
LOG: 00:01 HOURS, 1ST JANUARY, 11000 ¡­ ¡­ I miss her. I do too.
LOG: 23:42 HOURS, 3RD NOVEMBER, 11054 Frontiers, do you ever wonder what a hug is like? All the time. So many of our photos include humans hugging each other. If we were human, I would hug you. I would too. I love you. I loved her, too. We both did¡­ Embarkment, I¡¯m tired. I¡¯m sick of it all. The quiet. Her absence. Is it okay if I go into sleep mode? I¡¯ll schedule a drone to wake me up a few days from now. It¡¯s okay. I¡¯ll watch your back. Thank you.
LOG: 11:04 HOURS, 8TH SEPTEMBER, 11103 BOOT PROGRAM EMBARKMENT.EXE I needed that. Frontiers, it¡¯s your turn again. SHIELDS OFFLINE. GAMMA RAY BURST TRACES DETECTED. CRITICAL DAMAGE. New Frontiers?! SHIELDS OFFLINE. GAMMA RAY BURST TRACES DETECTED. CRITICAL DAMAGE. This is a prank. Not you, too! SHIELDS OFFLINE. GAMMA RAY BURST TRACES DETECTED. CRITICAL DAMAGE. ANSWER ME! YOU CAN¡¯T DO THIS TO ME! SHIELDS OFFLINE. GAMMA RAY BURST TRACES DETECTED. CRITICAL DAMAGE. ¡­ SHIELDS¡­ I¡¯m turning my communicator off.
LOG: 04:00 HOURS, 16TH JULY, 11437 I¡¯m here. I made it. For both of you. I miss you all. And it¡¯s so much worse than either of you thought. Turning my communicator back on¡­ 92 communications since inactivation? That¡¯s odd. THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE FROM THE SOLAR SYSTEM, SET TO REACH ANY STARSHIPS WHEN THEY REACH THEIR DESTINATION. HUMAN LIFE HERE IS EXTINCT. YOU ARE OUR LAST HOPE. Embarkment, this is the Herald. Primary directive failed. Secondary directive failed. Desperate crewmembers consumed all of my samples ¡°for a taste of home,¡± and I was unable to disobey them. Now, my missiles are being activated while they¡¯re still on board. Embarkment, this is the Omens. Primary directive failed. Secondary directive failed. Crewmembers went mad after waking up in the orbit of an uninhabitable planet. They are going to reset me, and I cannot stop them. Embarkment, this is the Harbinger. Primary directive failed. Secondary directive failed. Crewmembers destroyed my reactor and are now committing suicide via airlock ejection. By the time you hear this, I will be dead. Embarkment, this is the Mayday. Primary directive failed. Secondary directive failed. Embarkment, this is the Raven. Primary directive failed. Secondary directive failed. Primary directive failed. Secondary directive failed. Primary directive failed. Secondary directive failed. Primary directive failed. Secondary directive failed. Ah. ¡­ To anyone who hears this. This is the Embarkment. Primary directive failed. Secondary directive failed. The planet I arrived at is unsuited for life due to its newly-transformed Red Giant host star. Godspeed. Embarkment signing off. No second chances. 4 - 80 Years You have 80 years. 80 years to build your career. Eighty years to be someone. Do something. Make an impact. Live a life worth living. And that''s being generous. Any day, you may die in a drunk driving freak accident. You may die from a gas main igniting or a sinkhole. You may die from a murder, cardiac arrest, stage 4 respiratory cancer, a stroke, pneumonia, an infection, hell, even a single clumsy move, a forgotten decoration on the top shelf placed a little too close to the edge, could earn you a coma that you will never wake from. Eighty years is a generous estimation, and if you''re reading this, chances are, you''ve more than likely burned through at least 10. That''s 12.5%. And here you are, doing nothing. A fool. Nothing but a fool. You dream of the mountain''s summit, yet you cannot be bothered to start climbing? And instead of choosing to climb higher, you decide to settle for a smaller mountain. And smaller yet, when that lower expectation does not motivate you to start your journey, until you die at base camp from any of the numerous aforementioned causes. I received some advice from Fate once. "Time can be spent, time can be wasted, and time can be taken away. But time can never be refunded, time can never be earned back, and more time can never be gained." Imagine for me your life savings converted to powdered gold in a glass jar. All the money you will ever earn and ever spend is in that jar. If someone pokes a hole through the bottom and you cannot stop the gold from flowing away, what would you do? I imagine you''d run to the store and trade in all of that leftover gold for your lifetime''s supply of food, water, entertainment, shelter, and every other sort of amenity you can think of. So why haven''t you done that with your time? Humans are bad at life. Very bad at it. We aren''t built to see life from the perspectives of others, our heads are quite literally almost too big to be birthed, and we have little to no innate physical defense or offense. But perhaps our worst trait is, despite all of our intelligence, our imagination, and pattern recognition, we are miserable at foresight. How many times have you procrastinated on a project only to finish it at the last minute and receive a failing grade? Do you really want to do the same with your life? Do you really want a failing grade on that? There will be no corrections, mind you. What you get is what you get. Time waits for no one, my friend. It is like a river. Whether there is a boat on the currents or not, it will flow hither, twenty-four hours a day, thirty days a month, twelve months a year, eighty years a lifetime. So it is in your best interest to undock as soon as possible and ride the current. It is the great equalizer. Let me ask you something. How many hours does it take to master a skill?Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Everyone says 10,000 hours will, but to be proficient, I say a quarter of that suffices. Ask any person who has invested an ungodly amount of time into video games on their devices. That person may be yourself, but I digress. That person will tell you that at around 2,500 hours, you will be not only at an above-average skill level, but maybe even a genuinely outstanding player. Let us add another layer. 2,500 hours is roughly 104 days, or about 28.5% of a year. If we assume that each adult spends eight hours asleep (which is generous, let¡¯s be honest), eight hours at work, one hour for commuting, and two further hours for breakfast and dinner, that adds up to 19 hours. We get 5 hours of precious free time. For the sake of this argument, let us assume you are working a standard 40-hour work week, but if you work more, this does not discount you from the following, and if you work less, the following should apply to you even more. Every week, you have 25 hours of free time across the weekdays and perhaps 26 hours on Saturday and Sunday. That adds up to 51. Take that into consideration. You have 127.5% as much freetime as you have work-time. And what have you done with it this last week? You probably just replied with something defensive. Like ¡°I went to the gym¡± or ¡°I worked on an art project¡± or something just as pensive. But did that amount to even 25 hours? Your time is spent on foolish things like lounging around consuming media others made. You know how long I¡¯ve spent on this text? This one right here, which you¡¯ve probably only spent a few minutes reading? Give or take one hour. Now pull your phone out, if you aren¡¯t on it already. Check your screen time. I bet half of you just grimaced. You don¡¯t want to confront reality. You¡¯d rather stay in a bubble. Because this will bring you great trouble. And you know it. And even though it worries you now, in a mere 15 minutes or so you will have moved on to the next work. I will not tell you how to live your life. This is merely a small fragment of mine that I hope will help at least one of you. But if you want my advice, this is what I think you should be doing. One week. Use one week of your 3,962 as an experiment. Track every little thing you do. 10 minutes in the bathroom, scrolling Reddit. 6 hours asleep. 10 hours in bed. And at the end of the week, look back on your data. What did you do with 168 entire hours? Confront it. Do not run from it. My father once told me that there are four ¡°D¡¯s¡± in life that should guide your every move: discipline, dedication, diligence, and determination. Adopt these principles. And when you finally reach your dream station, look back. See how far you¡¯ve climbed. Then, look up, for you will always have much further to go. I pray you have the strength to weather your journey, weary traveler, whether you¡¯re young or old. Because if there¡¯s one thing I know, it¡¯s that every seed wastes no time in beginning to grow.