Infinity Curve - Lamentations to Unseen Friends Across the Vastness of Space: Predictable Paths, #5

By Blade Cort

Infinity Curve - Dystopian Novel [#postapocalyptic #dystopian #lifeextension] Book 5 of 8 in the Predictable Paths series]

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Rick's mission is clear: broadcast a last-ditch signal, a brilliant laser warning to alert alien civilizations about humanity's innermost secrets and expected downfall.

It's 2075, and the post-apocalyptic nation-state in which he lives is ruled by oligarchs who use ironclad AI surveillance tech to prevent a second cataclysm. Any minor embarrassment could result in death to the perpetrator.
Despite the risk, Rick is not happy with the oppressive control or the lazy grift of humanity and wants to do one last meaningful thing in life, even if unseen aliens are the only beneficiaries. He and Sofia execute a master plan to construct a powerful petawatt laser, then use it to bluster forth his volatile, pedantic rant on the state of the world.
But the long arms of the tech-rich oligarchy are quickly sniffing out his activities. Suspicion is growing fast, and he's running out of time.

 

PREDICTABLE PATHS episodes, in sequential order:

#1. AGENESS - A Longevity / Age Engineering Science Fiction Play on Our Imminent Ageless Dystopia ; Six Acts, Episodes -22 to -17

#2. CLIMATIC - A Climate and Genetic Engineering Science Fiction Novel; Episodes -16 to -2

#3. AMYGDALA HIJACK - A Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi Novel of Impending Dystopia (a Trilogy) 

  3.1 - Amygdala Hijack - The Waening, Part 1 of 3; Episodes 1 - 9

  3.2 - Amygdala Hijack - The Warning, Part 2 of 3; Episodes 10 - 18

  3.3 - Amygdala Hijack - The Wasting, Part 3 of 3; Episodes 19 - 28

#4. THREE GUYS IN A POST-APOCALYPTIC BAR - A Longevity / Age Engineering and Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi Novella ; Episodes 47 - 54

#5. INFINITY CURVE - Lamentations to Unseen Friends Across the Vastness of Space ; Episodes 56 - 78

#6. PATH TO ENTROPY - An Apocalyptic Climax ; Episodes 79 - 93

#7. SORD IN PROSPERITY - Hope Beyond the Apocalypse ; Episodes 118 - 159

#8. DAISY THE DUMPSTER DOG - A Sordid Tale of Dystopian Hubris and Convenient Canine Rationalizations (But Not a Supreme Court Satire or Parody) ; Episodes 311 - 337

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blade Cort
• Release date: Oct 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393360353

Blade Cort

Blade Cort writes Age Engineering and Longevity Science Fiction as well as Genetic Engineering Science Fiction novels and plays that are mercilessly littered with pedantic discourse, pointless diatribes, and persistent droning about humanity's pervasive derelictions. The pulp drivel exhumed from his keyboard is as terrifying and graceless as overcooked cafeteria peas. Visit https://www.bladecort.com.

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INFINITY CURVE - LAMENTATIONS TO UNSEEN FRIENDS ACROSS THE VASTNESS OF SPACE

Copyright © 2019 by Blade Cort

All rights reserved. No part of this publication or any elements from it may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying; recording; digitization or tokenization of characters, scenes, or any other components; or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Permission requests should be provided electronically to the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, dialog, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is coincidental. References to any products or services are not an endorsement and are only intended to develop the storyline and context.

SECOND EDITION MAY 2021

EPISODE 56 – THE AIR BRINGS DEATH

RICK! SOFIA CRIED, RUSHING into his small bunker and causing all six dogs to bark at the commotion.

She was panting. Anxiety contorted her normally placid, pleasant face. I just found a disabled mini-drone in the barn. They’ve discovered us, I fear.

Rick had fallen asleep after his last recording and awoke only a few minutes earlier to do muscle rubs and attempt to relieve the tetanus spasms with acupressure. He spun around on his ancient oak and leather office chair, its springs screaming, and held out both hands to grab hers.

I heard the alarm. Are you sure it got inside the barn and under the covers? Did a cat or other animal possibly drag it there? he inquired unemotionally, having gone through more than a few false alarms in the past.

Its motors were still going, she confirmed, and the little bastard was squirming around the floor with broken propellers. I wouldn’t have known it was there except for that telltale sound. When I lifted the foil cover, I saw it flailing aimlessly with its lights on. We have no choice but to assume the camera was still transmitting.

Shit! Rick screamed. After all these years, they’ve finally found us!

He paused for a moment and peered up at his wife of forty years. Sofia, too, was thinking the same thing.

This is the time, she lamented. It is the end, my friend, like that sad old Doors song I asked you not to play so many years ago. Too sad for me.

Rick was blinking to push the tears from his eyes. He knew they needed to scramble to execute their plan, meaning no time for sorrowful goodbyes.

Any idea how long?

How long what? she questioned.

How long it was in there?

Her flowing gray hair rustled across her purple jacket as she shook her head.

Don’t bite your lip, she thought. It’s a sign that something’s burning inside. Manage any fears in this moment.

We must assume it was concurrent with the alarm, she replied. What was that? Three minutes ago?

He released his grip on her hands and spun around to the array of vidscreens on his desk. My God! Two hundred twenty-four seconds since the alarm sounded. We’ll run out of time!

No, no, she assured him, pursing her lips in defiance. You’ll execute the steps you’ve practiced too many times, and I’ll perform my duties. But I don’t plan on leaving you. We’ll die together today if it comes to that.

Rick bolted from his chair, hugging Sofia. He breathed in slowly and rubbed his chin up her neck, kissing her earlobe. I always loved your neckline, woman. The softness. That scent.

Pulling back, he looked at her for what might be the last time.

We have two to three minutes, and we must move quickly. Leave me with Pete and Molli and take the others with you. Don’t forget to grab your bags. I hope that you and I are both too well matched in our paranoia. No drones will arrive at our abode today bearing gifts of ordnance. At most, we’ll be red flagged for this, don’t you think? We’ll see each other soon.

Sofia looked at him and smiled, her warm gray eyes also filling with tears. Don’t bullshit me, my love. You said similar reassuring words before we were separated those two times after the Debacle.

But we made it back together! he boasted, his head tilting to the side.

Rick, we lived good, long lives, she recounted, and many of those years were spent with each other. I will execute to our plan, as much as my heart says not to. I’ll take the four. You’d better take Pete and Molli, however, because you know they’ll want to come with me and the others. I’ll see you on the other side, wherever that may be.

She turned hastily, raising both hands to wipe her tears, then exited through the heavy wooden door. As she did so, Rick noticed her long, white cotton dress with a simple angled pattern along the hem, a gift from their Navajo neighbors. He recalled the many times he had removed that dress from her smooth shoulders.

Rick swallowed hard. I can’t let these emotions interfere with my resolve, he meditated beneath his breath. I, too, will execute to our plan.

He released Pete and Molli from his grasp, and they barked wildly at the inability to follow their mother. These two dogs, one a Scottie mix, the other a Westie, were named after a friend of Rick’s from long ago; Peter Scott, and his long-lost girlfriend.

Rick wished he was with him now. He sensed that Peter would have loved to die there with him, to perish for a just cause, a larger purpose, or even to assuage Peter’s long-held guilt that he was responsible, at least in some small part, for the cataclysm thirty-eight years’ prior. The Great Debacle.

I don’t have patience for this! Rick grumbled, rattled by the intensity of time. Kids, stop that barking! I need quiet to get my act together!

The dogs scampered to the carrying crates beneath his desk, their favorite places to sleep or hide, with eyes peeking out and barely noticeable in the dimly lit room. Rick had to keep the lights low to monitor the vidscreens without ambient light interference. He pounded at his keyboard rather than issue voice commands. It was just his way of keeping the discipline intact for this monumental moment that he and Sofia had planned during the last decade.

Sofia hopped into her 1962 International Scout 80, a relic from the prior century and long since converted to electric. She appreciated its light weight and how it managed its way through the snow, almost gliding on top of the white fluff in the wintry weather of Northeastern Arizona. Her grandfather had been a dealer of these vehicles and saved this one in his garage for his only granddaughter.

She glanced to the rear of the Scout, ensuring the four dogs were taking their places on the makeshift bed of blankets she kept in the back. A roller bag, always packed in anticipation of this immediate exit, was on the front seat.

Racing down the dirt road from the house, Sofia suddenly heard multiple sonic booms. Not a good sign, she knew. While she always gripped the steering wheel with two hands, given the Scout’s lack of power steering, she took her right hand off the wheel momentarily and crossed herself, something she had not done since attending her last Catholic mass decades earlier.

Rick was too busy in his bunker to watch Sofia leave the house. Embedded in the rise of a small hill, they lived there the last twenty-two years and had done considerable construction from its original structure.

Most of their effort was to build directly into the hill, carving out sections of the hillside to add rooms, and finally, excavating a small set of rooms for Rick’s bunker. Given his circumstance and the secrecy of his personal mission, most of his activities in the last five years occurred within this bunker and its few adjoining rooms. It was deep enough in the metallic hillside to be concealed from the prying eyes of the technologies the oligarchs deployed to keep the populace in check.

Rick was monitoring the signals caught by the dishes he had surreptitiously constructed at the top of the hill. The hillside was replete with old mining equipment, the perfect place to erect multiple well-camouflaged dishes, intended for specific use in this moment. They were actively relaying tracking signals to his monitoring vidscreens, signals he could not ignore.

He calculated how much time he had on a scratch pad. Damn! This will be cutting it close, he groaned, speaking to the dogs as if they understood. I have less than three minutes to do two hundred seconds of work.

From the corner of his eye, he saw an explosion a mile away in one of the perimeter cameras. The shock wave hit him immediately.

It was Sofia, he was certain. A small drone missile had either hit the Scout or impacted nearby. Either way, he knew what this meant.

His heart beat faster as his eyes filled again with tears, dripping onto the old black keyboard. God, please don’t take my girl and sweet dogs. Don’t do this! Go, Rick, move forward, he whispered. This is your only chance to execute the final plan; to save at least one other sentient species, or maybe more. To make some recompense, some amends, for humanity’s egregious and collective ignorance.

He glanced at the vidscreen above his desk that displayed multiple feeds from radar and cameras positioned around the house, vertical gardens, and barn. Jesus, appears that more damn mini-drones will arrive soon, kids.

With a few keystrokes, he released a dozen small defensive drones intended specifically for this purpose. If my drones destroy these babies, perhaps they’ll knock out the tracking signals for what’s surely to follow.

His detailed execution process was now in full swing. He watched as the barn’s roof receded, pulling back its layered metal sheets in sequence and stopping just beyond the vertical plane of the barn walls.

A simple barn, he mused, trying to purge Sofia’s circumstance from his mind. No cows or horses here, but a convenient facade for all these years.

Its outer walls then collapsed, shaking the ground beneath him. Beautiful, just as planned, he observed.

The barn’s exposed floor revealed one more thing that needed to occur for his laser arrays to gain unhindered access to the evening sky, but something had deviated from plan. The laser array platform was only at eighty-nine percent of its extended length from the underground vault. Having designed and installed it, he knew that any variation from spec could mean catastrophe.

What the hell? he screamed at the dogs who were still in their carriers, frightened by his frenzy. Come out, guys, we’re taking a quick look.

Rick threw the heavy bunker door open and ran through the house, something he had not done in the last five years. During that time, he had been a prisoner in his own bunker. Self-imposed.

In order to evade the constant snooping of drones flying around his house, as well as other devious mechanisms employed by the paranoid oligarchs to spy on its citizens, Rick was forced to exile himself into a thousand square foot set of rooms at the rear of the house, deep in the hill.

After all, the government considered him dead or missing. He and Sofia had to make sure that they continued to assume so – at least until this final moment, when it mattered no longer.

With killer drones or even military jets likely screaming across the high desert plains to reach him, he didn’t care anymore if a mini-drone or hidden camera or satellite caught his image. This was his time, the first time outdoors in five long years, and likely the last.

As Rick ran through the house, he glanced at the changes Sofia had made to the furniture and decorations. He wanted to stop and take it in, the beauty of this desolate home in a destitute and neglected part of Vista, one of three domains in Westrich comprised primarily from the western portion of the former United States.

His mind raced back to Sofia, hopefully not mortally wounded and helpless, or better yet, alive and running from the wreckage. But seeing that first small explosion, he sensed they would both be dead soon since his bright laser signal would likely bring quick and lethal retribution. Aside from being hypersensitive to embarrassment, oligarchs were quite ruthless when it came to doling out punishment to any citizen who deviated this much from expectations.

And there was no way the oligarchy would have suspected what he was about to do.

The signal was the product of ten years of planning, deception, and cunning. The path to construct the signals was initiated the day he heard that his friend Rodney had gone missing after getting red-flagged by the Vista government for speaking out against the oligarchs.

Rodney was a Navajo silversmith, one of the few remaining craftsmen who knew how to make everything useful with the metal. Rick had known him for years, long before he and Sofia moved from Farmington to this isolated home seventeen miles east of Tuba City. Rodney was fearless, outspoken, and truthful, and he carried his culture with pride in everything he did.

Rick was only officially aware that Rodney was still missing, but in Vista, that likely meant he was dead. The government had devised so many methods to monitor and control individuals to ensure compliance within their system: recording and analyzing their movements, using connected intercom systems to hear their whispers while sleeping, or invading one’s thoughts through hypersensitive sensors assisted by extractive AI algorithms.

Most citizens simply assumed that such invasive technologies were in widespread use by now and for good reason, since they had proven highly effective in controlling or eliminating aberrant members of society. After the Great Debacle, nobody seriously questioned authority or the resulting diminution of personal freedoms, as long as that authority kept them safely alive.

Rick hurried towards the barn, with Pete and Molli striding along, recalling his thoughts from that day.

I am at the end of disgust in humanity’s foibles. The end of our mistakes. The eventual dissolution of the species. But Rodney’s death and so many others can’t be for naught. As one individual, I can play no role in forestalling that fateful eventuality. But I must tell somebody who might care; someone who might pay attention to my plea. I must warn them.

Upon reaching the barn, he stopped for a moment to survey his work. Here was the mechanism to enable his urgent signal, an array of the most powerful lasers he could construct in concealment, given the circumstances. They weren’t the most powerful in the world, but they were strong enough to perform the job he required.

He had spent untold hours just below the ground’s surface, constructing the Petawatt power storage facilities to enable the transmissions. Twelve, ten-second microbursts of condensed information. One hundred twenty sequential ticks of the clock with a few seconds in between for power recharges and cooling.

Such a bright light sent into the sky would, for those few, brief moments, outshine the sun by many factors. This was his decade-long dream, and a minor platform glitch was not about to stop him.

Rick fell to the hard ground to peer under the array, cursing that he’d forgotten to grab a flashlight in his haste. He heard a strained hum of motors at the array’s edge, evidence that they were attempting to push the platform upward to its full extension. Grabbing the side of the structure, he shook it with vigor. It was too heavy to yield to his arm strength.

Dogs! he yelled as they jumped on him. Not now. Go!

They trotted backward, wondering why he was lying on the ground, yet not playing with them as he always did.

Let’s see, he considered. Stay calm, as per your training. Don’t worry about the power sequence that will begin in twenty-five seconds. Survey the hinges. Are they the same height?

Then he saw the problem. ‘No, look there!" he cried, as if the dogs understood.

He crawled over to a thick metal hinge at his right. It was not as extended as the others, causing the entire platform to shift downward on one side from the horizontal plane of the ground.

I’m out of time, and it’s heavy gauge metal. No choice but to kick the damn thing! he shouted, pounding his bare heel against it. You idiot, Rick! Going outside in your bare feet with no time to put shoes on.

He kicked it again. With that effort, the hinge righted itself and the platform sprang into its locked position.

Deep gash, he mumbled, sensing a warm,