The First Memory

I stand in the sitting room of Grandfather’s house, listening to his jokes and laughter. Grandmother serves honey-sweet Nektar- the preferred drink of most kids I knew- and a plate of fresh cookies from the replicator in their kitchen. Some prefer to cook their own meals, others prefer to have food made for them instantly. We are free to choose whatever we wish. Our world is perfect… you can have anything you want, at any time.

Grandfather gets a call and goes to his study to answer. I’m stealthy, even at the tender age of eight, and I follow. As I listen, dawning realization hits me. Grandfather is somehow involved with the Council! They’re calling him in… some kind of meeting, something about annual maintenance.

I know what maintenance is. It’s about fixing or cleaning things… but he’s not a machine worker. He’s a retired professor! Why in Horus do they need him?

There’s only one way to find out. That night, after the children are put to bed on the breezy sleep porch of the house, Grandfather slips out to his personal transport and keys for a destination far away. He’s completely unaware that I’m aboard, watching in excitement.

The trip takes hours… it’s hard for a child to hold their bladder. Grandfather has to stop a few times, and I take full advantage- grateful that he’s a lot slower than me- before scuttling back to the transport. I notice that we’re headed to the mountains. There are a few mountains in our world, but this particular range is the only one that seems perennially shrouded in mist at the summit. It looks like the gods of our world are keeping themselves veiled from our notice.

The transport stops at a gate. Grandfather keys a code and speaks some phrase… some kind of voice code. He’s permitted entry. For another hour, the transport winds around the mountains, rising ever higher, until we rise above the mists and stop. I find myself staring upward at a tall, silvery glass building shaped like the pinnacle of a mountain, but the pinnacle of this mountain is long gone. It was carved away to make room for a dozen or more buildings, most surrounded by armed guards.

After another conversation, Grandfather’s transport moves into the tall glass building and parks in a slot marked with his name. Jonathan Spafford. He leaves the transport and goes through a door in the wall.

I’m torn… do I follow him? I’ve already broken I don’t know how many rules, but I’ve come this far, and no one in our world knows the truth about our gods. I could be famous, the first person to actually meet them! It’s the only chance I’ll ever have. I slip out of the transport and move to the same door, peeking through a glass panel. Grandfather had already gone further into the building and the room is empty.

I slip inside and look around. There’s a desk and it looks like someone should be sitting here, but they’re not, for whatever reason. There’s a door to a lift… and not much else. I go to the lift door and look for a summons button, but there’s only a sensor for a keycard. Drat… now what?

The door dings and I duck into a corner. The lift opens and I have just one glance at long, shapely female legs before I take a chance and hurry into the lift. There are the buttons! The bottom one is marked “Central Control”. That sounds promising.

I press the button, and down I go. Down, down… as tall as this mountain is, I’ve easily dropped below the surface of the surrounding land by the time the lift stops. The doors slide open, and I hurry into a long corridor. There are doors on each side marked with names. Grandfather’s is the second to last on the left. I look back and count… ten doors, five on each side.

The Council of Ten are actual people?

It doesn’t sound right. If they are, then why all the secrets and rumors?

I find a door at the end marked “Control”. Another scan pad. Taking heart from my earlier victory, I wait in the corner until it opens and three people come out, talking about things like “tolerances”, “processors”, and “heat-stress”. I’m curious, but this is my chance. I move through the door and scuttle into another corner… then look around.

It looks like a large office of sorts, with the floor gradually sloping toward the center like a theater, but the desks in the room face a glassed-in area instead of a stage. Inside of the glass is the largest collection of metal and blinking lights I’ve ever seen. Though I’m only eight, I recognize it as a computer. Or… computers? There are several towers, each at least four feet in width, and nearly eight in height. I count… ten towers.

The Council of Ten… are computers?!

It still makes no sense, but it makes more sense than the gods of our world being ordinary people.

I spot Grandfather in the far corner of the room, next to a wall that separates the office from a seemingly empty room on the other side of the computer bay. That room has the only door into the glass area.

He’s standing at a desk with a few others, men and women, all talking seriously. “That was far too close!” Grandfather comments sternly. “I’m telling you, this is ridiculous! We can’t wait any longer.”

“Jonathan, we’ve already discussed this,” says another man, a bit younger but still old from my point of view. “The keys can’t just be yanked out and moved. Until you find a way to duplicate them in place, we’ll have to continue as is. You have to admit, it’s a lot easier to maintain with it all in one place.”

“If it were to fail, there’s no backup! No redundancy! The new system is in place; we need to move now. Keeping this in one place is a recipe for disaster.”

A woman shrugs. “From what? We’ve maintained this system from the beginning. It’s never failed… ever. And it never will as long as we keep our heads and follow the rules.”

“And if there’s a quake? Or some other disaster? The ground isn’t entirely stable anymore,” Grandfather retorts.

“This isn’t Earth, Jonathan. You’re living in the past. This place never has quakes because we’re in control.”

“What about asteroids? You can’t control space! They tried, and yes, I maintain a certain awareness of the past. Think about what actually happened to Earth!”

“That’s what the laser web is for. You have a point, and we’re aware of it- or we’d never have agreed to let you try your crazy plan- but the risk is too great. Duplicate the keys or we won’t change anything.”

Grandfather shakes his head, looking uncharacteristically grumpy. “Honestly… all of fifteen minutes. That’s all it would take.”

A slender man who looks like he cares a lot about his appearance rolls his eyes and sighs. “More like two or three days, and you know it. We can’t use rapid air transport with the network down. Let’s get this maintenance done, then you can go back to your studies and find an answer we can all agree on.”

The group breaks up and they each go to their desks, sitting and typing, pressing buttons and other stuff I can’t see. What I can see is that they’re making the computers in the glass room react. The lights flash a lot more, and a lot longer. What are they doing?

“I’ve got sector one. Anyone else?”

“Sector two is being slow… I think the reserve power supply gave out. I need a minute for confirmation.”

“Three is ready.”

“Same for four.”

“Two minutes for five… did we bring fans?”

“Of course.”

“Just checking.”

One after the other, all ten sectors check in. Once they’re ready, all ten people file into the small, empty room. As I watch with wide eyes, they strip naked and put their clothes into airtight bins. Then, they activate some kind of switch. I see rapid air currents move through their room, buffeting them. It looks like a giant vacuum. Those with long hair shake out their hair like they’re trying to shake out sand at the beach.

When the air dies down, they pull out some white suits with helmets, boots, and backpacks, and pull them on. Another strong rush of air pulls at them, then they take turns running hose nozzles all over each other. One of them presses a switch and I see a laser scanner travel over them. When it’s over, a light flashes over the door into the computer room.

They all enter, some carrying bins I hadn’t noticed before. For the next two hours, they spend time removing panels from the computers, replacing parts, using all kinds of strange scanners and testing equipment on the machines. It’s boring, and I start to doze until I hear a voice overhead. Something about a “breach”.

All ten emerge from the room in a hurry- the computers still partially disassembled- and run to their computers.

“Where? And how? The scanners should have caught anyone coming in!”

“Unknown,” says a disembodied voice. “We’re trying to pin it down. The life-sign is small, probably an animal, but we need to find it anyway.”

“Maybe Christa’s cat hitched a ride in her bag again,” one man jokes, getting a glare from a woman with frizzy blond hair.

Another woman straightens and holds up her hands. “Whoever or whatever it is, we need to find them. Split up and search. Everyone take a level, find the intruder before they can do any damage!”