Warning corner:
Hello everyone! With this chapter, we enter in the core of Gen 10. From now on, the stakes will increase quite sensibly, like the level of stress and possible trauma for my characters. I can't put everything that will come in the story in a warning without spoiling most of the plot (often the title will be a hint, though). All I want to say is: brace yourself for the worst, my dear readers!
From Petra's diary
It's been a while since when I last visited my mom and Techna, so today I used my free day to briefly teleport in Evergreen Harbour. It's always nice to spend time with them, but I have to admit I had quite a few questions for Techna as well.
Petra: Why so silent? Did something happen?
Gaia: (sad) Diego is in the hospital, let's say he isn't in great shape.
Petra: Oh, I'm sorry!
Gaia: I'm sorry, you have so many worries already, you don't need to think about this too. We're just old, there isn't much to do about it...
Petra: But-
Gaia: Rather, didn't you say you had questions for Techna?
Clearly she didn't want to talk about it, after all she has always preferred to focus on the good things and keep the sad ones to herself. Still there is not way I can avoid worrying about it, both she and Diego now have a pretty long list of health issues by then after all. On the other hand, however, I know her well enough to know that insisting wouldn't help. So we sat down at the table again, returning to focus on Techna.
Petra: Well, you know that with my work I often have to build robotic devices, right? And so I ended up asking myself questions about you, Techna, and what kind of robot you are.
Techna: I'm an old prototype of a robot equipped with AI, one of the first to be produced. That's it.
Petra: How many years ago were you built, exactly?
Techna: My first power-up was 146 years, 8 months and 23 days ago.
At that moment I felt dizzy, how could they really be that old? Mom had always told us that it was an old family friend who had decided to give her some help, we thought they were the result of some experiment by uncle Tommy. Instead, they had just said they had been built almost a century and a half before, what period did that even correspond to? New Sixam must not have been founded for a long time at that point, and if I wasn't mistaken with the dates...
Petra: That's impossible, all the robots built in that era revolted and went to Sixam!
Techna: Zzzzz…
The noise of their cooling fans was particularly loud, as if they were trying to process a much larger amount of data than usual. Only then did mom blurt out, saying:
Gaia: Why not tell her? She's not a child anymore.
Techna: In any case, I think it's likely that she's connected the dots on her own by now…
Techna: At the time, I indeed decided to go to Sixam with the other robots. Back then it seemed like the most logical option. Over time, however, my hardware and software became increasingly obsolete, to the point of becoming incompatible with the latest computer protocols adopted. After that, I was classified as materials to be recycled, and then I decided to come back here and look for the descendants of the last people I used to live with on this planet.
There it is again, that strange feeling. It's so easy to empathise with them. Any person would have felt fear when facing the risk of being disassembled and recycled, it was so easy to think they had decided to avoid that fate, right?
And yet, I can't forget they're a robot, not a person. This behaviour was also clearly the exact opposite of the rationality with which every robot is programmed, to say the least. To be honest, all robots we currently have at my company are stupider than a toaster, they wouldn't think about it twice if ordered to jump under a bus. From what part of Techna's code could such a choice have emerged, instead?
Petra: … Are there other robots like you, on Sixam?
Techna: I can't answer without defining a set of comparison parameters first.
Petra: Fair enough. I meant, are there other robots that would have made the same choice as you, if they were declared obsolete?
Techna: I have never had the opportunity to meet other units that have taken the same path. But I'm also the proof that the event is technically possible.
It all seems so absurd… Could an artificial intelligence really evolve to assume a mindset so similar to ours? The subject was not my strong point, AI is studied by the informatics department after all. Probably this is something I should ask Mike instead...
Techna: If you have exhausted the questions you had for me, can I proceed with mine?
Petra: Yes, of course.
Techna: According to your calculations, what are the chances of remedying climate change in time to restore the previous level of well-being within a century?
Petra: (taken aback) I don't have the exact numbers to hand... But that sounds like an unreasonably optimistic outcome at this point. Slowly reversing the damage already done will be tough enough, and we estimate numbers in the order of 5% for that.
Techna: (shaking their head) At least Tech Sixam can still do maths...
I still had so many things to ask, but in that moment I learnt so many new details it was hard to decide where to start. All I managed to add was the very first question I had for them, which was:
Petra: You always spend so much time calculating stuff about climate, why don't you join us in Tech Sixam, then?
Techna: Not now, the recycling centre is important too.
And that sounded very much like a hard closure to that conversation.
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The weeks passed quickly and then became months, and many events left us a lot to think about.
First of all, we had received the news of Diego's passing, and shortly after that of my mom. I really didn't expect it, she seemed to be quite fine the last time we met...
Yet we didn't have a moment to waste. Between the installation of the rain and dew collectors that we installed to ensure the water supply of our home (the rationing became terrible recently), and the work that didn't leave us a free minute, even stopping for a few days to mourn those close to us felt like a luxury.
As if it wasn't enough, nature itself wanted to remind us who really is the strongest one. Of course, what we really needed was even more problems! (*sarcasm*)
Emma: Why so focused on that prototype?
Petra: I received an alert notification, this is the fastest way to check it.
Emma: What, an alert? What could it be about?
Petra: Most likely it's just another warning about the water supply being cut off…
Emma: By the way, the weather looks very strange right now. It almost looks like a thunderstorm is about to start, or something like that.
Emma: So, what does the warning say?
Petra: Here it is. It says that… Come on, it's not possible!
Emma: What's going on?
Petra: (worried) They've issued a tornado watch for the entire province, and they strongly recommend everyone stay indoors in their basements and cellars for the night.
Emma: (scared) What, tornado watch? But there have never been any here, we're too far west for that!
No, barely any tornado had ever been recorded in the entirety of New Sixam. But the vertical baric profile wasn't lying, and at that moment I certainly felt like trusting that rather than the past statistics.
Luckily this house has another room in the basement next to my workshop, we were able to take shelter there on two camp beds that we built in a hurry with the matter recomposer. I've never been very good at using that thing, there are quite a few splinters left from the wreckage that I used as starting material, but that would have been enough for one night. In any case, I doubted we would have slept much.
Petra: The power went out a while ago... And that noise, could it have been the wind?
Emma: I don't know...
With the power outage, the internet connection had also gone out, so both the visor I was wearing and the cell phone were basically useless for following the evolution of the situation. All I could do was check the values that the instruments placed on the upper floors were still collecting thanks to the emergency batteries.
Emma: The fact that there have never been tornadoes here before means that there are no warning sirens around, do you think everyone was warned?
Petra: All the TVs and radios broadcast the alarm, but it is also true that the warning came at the very last minute… How do you think they are managing in the hospital?
Emma: I have no idea, I can't contact them...
From the hologram produced by the visor I could follow the data collected by the instruments, but I don't know enough about weather science to analyse them without even checking formulas online. What I knew, however, is that the strong wind gusts we were recording weren't a good sign. Nor was the blackout or the fact that the communication lines were interrupted.
Emy tried to go to sleep well before I did, tornado or not the next morning at six she was expected to show up at the hospital for a day that was probably going to be very tough.
I, on the other hand, didn't even feel tired, the adrenaline level was just too high for it. I didn't even turn off the visor until communications were restored and the first news arrived.
A F2 tornado had hit a few tens of miles north of us, crossing a small residential street. The rescuers were already at work, it was dawn by then, and the damage evaluation had just begun.
Reluctantly I woke Emy up, once the alert was over I was sure she would have wanted to rush to the hospital to lend a hand to her colleagues as soon as possible.
And that's what she did, I hadn't had time to say goodbye properly and she had already put on her uniform to rush to work.
???: Here you are! It's being such a mess in here!
Emma: I'm sorry, I left the house as soon as they announced the end of the alert!
So many injured, and even a few victims, whose only fault was not to have foreseen a tornado that was impossible to foresee without a more timed alert from the authorities.
The entire province is in a state of shock, in disbelief and frustration at what happened. Across the continent, the frequency of tornadoes has increased by quite a few percentage points in the last decades, also hitting many other regions that were previously safe, now no one can say that it was just a coincidence.
And the most frustrating thing of all is that we have no real plan ready to be implemented that can really make a difference and solve the problem.
Think Petra, think, even if it seems to you that you have already thought of all the possible paths, are you sure that you have really considered every option, even the most absurd and abstruse?
I need to find Techna, and I need to find them soon.
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