Waiting for the Flyers (Sally ten years on)

I’ve been rather tired recently. I spent most of my eightieth birthday in bed although I received visits during the day. Rachael wanted to plan a celebration to mark my eight decades, but I told her there’s nothing to celebrate. Throughout my time here I always refused to make a “thing” about my birthday. Being at the head of our community I worried it would put me on a pedestal. Studying the history of nations showed me reverence for one individual generally turned out to be unhealthy for a society. I felt it better to be a guide rather than a ruler.

I’m not against marking birthdays. I always encouraged my children and our new arrivals to make birthdays joyful events as a way of commemorating our expansion – so important for our continued existence. But for me – one of a handful of AVA miracles tasked with re-growing humanity – after seeing the effect the solar storm on my community celebration seemed reprehensible. I haven’t conveyed those thoughts to anybody of course. Those secreted opinions must die with me. The last thing needed is discouragement.

Looking over the history I’ve documented since my “life” began, the last ten years leave me with an uncomfortable melange of emotions. Sadness, concern, despair, guilt, failure and hope. Hope, of course, my worries turn out unfounded. The day Nick, Danny and young Roy stumbled on the village of Burnalham triggered events which irreversibly effected our community. Possibly its survival.

Initially I thought it was a great opportunity. Our community was maturing, we no longer had AI support other than a few machines and computers my boys managed to get working.  We managed to feed ourselves remarkably quickly. In truth, it was just a case of taking over vital functions run by AI equipment. We needed to break out of the nurtured circle created for us as a matter of urgency. It was important we spread out to take advantage of anything useful we found in the remnants of our passed civilization.

The OS maps we found showed us the easiest way to get to Burnalham. Alan and Terry set about organising construction of a clear path to the village. After his ankle healed, Jess was keen to get involved and took control of a group of young guys doing the work, releasing Alan to spend time with me building a much wider map of the area.

When I thought about the OS maps we found inside an unmarked box tucked away in a cellar room, it bothered me. The books and documents in the big house’s library gave up a world of information. Everything we needed to educate ourselves and to form schools for the children. There were detailed atlases of the World; maps of countries. We were situated in what had been England, part of the British Isles that was clear. I could find all the cities and towns even the counties, but I never found anything more local than that. Nothing about road systems.

I knew when I was very small Madge, Jonny and I were in the East of England, but after Lila-Grace told them I should be in a secure area to avoid potential kidnapping attempts, we travelled a lot. Frequently moving. Sometimes in darkened vehicles, sometimes in aircraft. Once on an enormous luxury yacht. I never really knew where we were. Madge was with me all that time as guardian and teacher. I’m not even sure she was kept up to date about our movements. Occasionally I saw Jonny. When I was about twelve Lila-Grace arrived one day and told Madge she’d secured a safe base. We were shipped to the big house. Then my “real” education began.

Life was so full from the outset, first with my education – which has never really stopped – then setting up our community. Giving birth to five and raising a further ten offspring didn’t give a lot of time to worrying about where I was. My plate was full. Total reliance on the AI set up didn’t fan my embers of curiosity.

As Alan and I pieced together the OS maps I was awed by the mass of information they contained. We had seventeen dated over several years from 1989 to 1995. What surprised us was how small an area they covered, but they confirmed we were based in East Anglia. Our estate more or less filled one map. They covered only a small section of the entire country also they were piecemeal leaving several gaps. A great help for local knowledge, but we’d be blind outside the areas they showed.

‘Hey, Ma look at this.’ Alan said one evening as we pawed over a 1995 map. ‘There’s footnote here saying all OS maps have been digitized and are available on a website.’

‘That’s not good. Digitised maps are no use to us now.’

‘Ma, wake up. How do you think the bots knew their way around and how the drones found us when they brought supplies from all over the planet?’

‘Satellites.’

‘Maa.’ Alan was getting frustrated. ‘They needed something to refer to otherwise they couldn’t guide the machinery.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘All that information must be on file somewhere. Think about it, Ma. Probably the entire World is mapped. You said yourself if the Big Green hadn’t happened there must’ve been a long term plan for us to re-populate the country. We’d need maps and guidance. Something must be buried here in the AI operating system.’

‘And you think you can find it?’

‘Me and Jack did get some computers going, but of course everybody’s been more focussed on farming and feeding ourselves. Given time we might be able to break it open. You didn’t force me to study robotics and AI for nothing.’ 

‘Well you better try it, but I’m not sure how doable it is. There’s no urgency, we have enough to be going on with for a year or three I imagine.’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘Ha. I know you. You won’t rest now will, you? But listen keep what you find between you, me and Jack. Just remember people have to learn to walk before they can run. If folks all start going off in different directions without a plan we’ll fall apart.’

‘You think.’

‘I know, Son. Why d’you think we’ve . . . I’ve been kept in the dark all this time? They had it all planned. When it was judged the time was right we’d been given the information we needed. Lila-Grace once talked about detailed computer projections on different scenarios to calculate the best way forward into the future. They calculated the pit-falls.’

‘Yeah, right. Pity they didn’t project for a monster solar storm.’

‘The computers probably did, but it was ignored ‘cos the probability was too small.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Because they were built by humans.’