Episode 0.6: Read-Only Memory

Introduction

Stories from the Old World surround us, even one and a half centuries after The Collapse.
After working together to discover the history of the Kuethir, college principle, Carma Sah, gifted me with a digital copy of his whole dataset, gathered from years of curation, and most recently, pulled from the military Haapala reports of the takeover of the ship.
It is in these reports that I found the logs of an EQUUS transport vehicle, like Maddie uses to get around.
It seems that this semi-autonomous quadrupedal robot was popular not just with military, police, and search and rescue, but in the civilian market, too.
Before The Collapse, they were seen as a cheaper alternative to a pack horse; working tirelessly for many days, not requiring food or maintenance, and could be powered by any electricity source.
This story comes from the audio logs of one such robot, a small EQUUS unit named "Jument".

Rabat, Morocco. 2080-02-04, 2 Years after The Collapse

"Jument, good boy, how is your battery? We may have to walk through the night again."
This is the voice of Leila Tazi.
The feed's metadata shows that she, along with Sofia Tazi, is one of two registered owners of the robot.
We then hear the sound of Lojban beeps on this audio-only feed as Jument confirms 72 hours of remaining battery life.
This EQUUS unit does not sound like Maddie
She has a melodic, almost human tone to her communication, whereas Jument's burst of Lojban was all square waves and terse protocols - a restricted vocabulary designed to be easily learned by untrained human operators.
"Can you send another message through to Sofia?" Leila asked.
Jument beeped a confirmation and began recording:

"Hi habibi! I hope you pick this up when you've finished working late.
I didn't expect that when the end of the world came, people would still be going to the office, did you?
Your work is important, I know, I'm teasing!
We have reached the border! I can see the hazy outline of Gibraltar on the northern horizon!
I have told Jean and Flo that we will be through by dinner time, (but I know we will not)."
There is a pause before she continues.
I am trying not to scare our children.
So, after recording this, I'll send them off to play with a group of families we passed an hour ago - I can still see them having fun back there, we've not moved very far...
OK, I go. I can't wait to see you in Barcelona, not long now!
LES ENFANTS!

Jument beeped as he finalised the recording and began transmitting as the Tazi's voices quickly faded out of his microphone range.

A few hours pass.
Over this time, the logs show Jument's EQUUS software pattern-matching the sounds of people shouting, military radio bursts, and, very concerningly, a single, distant, gunshot.
The log then continues:
"They MUST let us though, Jument," Leila said quietly, "we have walked so far to the crossing!
It was only last week we heard the road to Gibraltar was open, they wouldn't close it now, surely..."
Jument is not as talkative as Maddie, but beeped a short acknowledgement that he was listening for commands.
"I am so thirsty, could you dispense a cup of water for me please?" Leila said.
A burst of low, error tones played over the loud sounds of Jument's water pump, an extremely common addition for the civilian EQUUS models.
"You've got ?one litre left?" Leila said, misunderstanding the Lojban.
Jument repeated the error message.
"Oh. This is the... Last CUP of water?!" she finally translated.
"I've changed my mind: I don't want it after all. Please take it back, the children will be thirsty when they return from playing."
Jument beeped a different error message.
"Yes I know your filter needs replacing, postpone that again please. Maybe there will be repair centres in Europe for you?" she said, then, much quieter, perhaps to herself,
"Maybe there will be a place in Europe for all of us."

Barcelona, Spain. 2080-03-10, 1 Month Later

Jument has logged another message from Leila Tazi to her wife:

Hi habibi! We are safe!
We are in Europe!
The children miss their mother very much, and can't wait to see you.
I miss my Sofia very much, too.
I wish we weren't so far apart.
You've gone on ahead of us, I suppose?
We'll continue on our planned route, we knew we might get separated, right?

Though the crossing was horrible, it was mercifully uneventful.
I heard someone say that the Mediterranean Dam is 14 km across, from Morocco to Gibraltar.
We felt every metre.
The sea is so low on the right side, compared to the ocean on the left; hundreds of metres drop to the Mediterranean below.
We all knew it was drying up, but to witness the evaporating sea first-hand was shocking for all of us.
I had to explain to the children why so many people were crying, seeing it like this.

Did you come this way, I wonder?
We crossed overnight, thankfully, there would be no shade possible on the concrete road that is built on top of the dam during the day.
It was all anti-climactic, really, compared to our escape from Rabat.
We walked towards the horizon for just 2h, and suddenly we were in Europe.

That was a bit more than month ago, we are now in a camp outside Barcelona.
But it's... It's not what we hoped, Fia.
We walked through the desert of Spain, seeing none of the shady, tree-lined boulevards in the painting that hung in our little kitchen.
It broke my heart to see this place, up close.
It has been days since we've seen a single living plant or wild animal or even RIVER.
The children don't know that it's not supposed to be like this, this had been their entire life back home, why would it be any different here?
I sort-of envy them this ignorance.
You and I glimpsed heaven, just for a moment when we were children, didn't we?
We must continue North.
I will see you soon.

Brussels, Belgium. 2080-04-06, 1 Month Later

Fia, my love, it's all gone.
We are at a camp south-east of what remains of the city, on a low hill covered in yellow scrubland and dead trees.
We SHOULD be looking over the home of European central government, a historic city of art and culture, the children should be eating BELGIAN CHOCOLATE!
But it's all gone.
Jument, pause please.

The Vives family, our neighbours in the next tent over said that a forest used to grow here, all over this region.
It's hard to imagine that now.
This dry desert looks no different from the ones we walked through in Spain and France.
It'll all be sand soon, like home, I imagine.
Sofia, we must continue going North, we must find our new beautiful green home, this is no place for the children.
We are going to travel with the Vives' north-east, to The Netherlands.
If The Dutch can't irrigate a desert, then surely no-one can!
Meet us there, Fia?
I miss you.
I can't do this without you.

Utrecht, The Netherlands. 2080-04-15, 1 Week Later

There are no deserts here, habibi, that is certain.
Lack of water is not the problem.
The sea level rise did not affect Morocco as it has here.
Yes, every year the people closest to the sea in Rabat were pushed back as the ocean reclaimed the Wadi Sala estuary, but nothing like here.
Our neighbours told us that half of the Netherlands was already below sea level, built on reclaimed land over centuries of pumping away water.
When the dikjes broke, there was nothing stopping the sea reclaiming it all right back.
We have walked as far north as we can, the ocean is an impassable barrier, waves crashing 50 km behind the old coast.
We can't stop here.

Do you remember, we had that picnic date overlooking the river, a thousand years ago it seems like?
Before the war, before rationing, before we were afraid to listen to the radio every morning.
The lights of Rabat twinkled below us, music from some faraway club blending with the sound of nighttime insects.
We lay in the grass, watching the LEO satellites skim overhead.
You taught me their names and how to recognise them:
Some were solitary, some had tails, and some you could guess their orbit by their speed.
That evening seemed to go on forever.
I dream of it every night.

I have decided.
I'm taking the children as far North as we can go.
We will have our forever, Fia.
Don't get lost.

Gothenburg, Sweden. 2080-05-14, 1 Month Later

Oh Fia, it's terrible here!
After we arrived on the boat, all seemed good at first, we were provided with blankets and water when we arrived, and there were 3 hot meals available in the canteen in the FIRST camp.
But after 2 days, they moved us to a second camp.
And then, a day later, to a third.
We were separated from our friends, the Vives family, "allocated to a different region" the police told us as they cut the camp in half.
New people arrived from Europe, Russia, India - all over.
None from Africa.
They say they're doing this to "prevent monoculture ghettos", but they're the ones putting us in the camps.
It's the camps that are the problem, not that they can be full of people from one foreign culture!
They don't see it like this, of course.
Racists never do.

They won't let us travel any further North.
"Go home to your families." the police told us all.
The very suggestion belies their intentional misunderstanding.
We no longer HAVE a home, I told them, MY CHILDREN no longer have a home, and I no longer have -

I no longer have a wife.
We left everything behind when we left Rabat; toys, books, love, and now I must leave hope behind, too.
I know you can't hear me, habibi.
Only the you who still lives in my memories before the bombs can hear me.
That's not enough.

"The children are stirring. Jument: End recording."
Jument beeped a question in Lojban.
"Yes transmit it. Anywhere, it doesn't matter any more."

Freetown Copenhagen, Denmark. 2080-05-25, 1 Week Later

Hi Fia.
I know you can't hear me, but I like talking to you.
I NEED to keep talking to you.
So I'm going to continue, even though I know you would think it silly.
I have good news, finally!
We were deported south, from Sweden to Denmark a week ago, travelling by road this time.
We arrived in Copenhagen, which the locals call "Freetown" Copenhagen, after walking over the Øresund Bridge.
This is a LOVELY country!
We were met by medics, water, food and shelter, but also by mental health first-aiders and playgrounds with carers for the children!
There has been a revolution, of sorts, here.
The locals told us what had happened - after the 1-day war, 3 years ago, the country awoke, not to bombing or famine or invasion, but to a power vacuum:
The royal family and much of the parliament had fled the country under the cover of night, along with most of the senior officers in the army!
Before society could fall into anarchy, something wonderful happened:
This quiet revolution began here in Copenhagen, long known for its self-organisation, and spread to the rest of the city, and to the whole country.
It's almost perfect here, habibi!
Almost.

Ålesund, Norway. 2080-06-01, 1 Month Later

"Send the message one last time please, Jument." Leila Tazi said.
Jument beeped a quick affirmative tone, paused, and then continued, with a much longer reply.
"Um, yes, that's right," Leila replied, "you've got to stay here, but you can help these people, you'd like that, right?"
Jument played another burst of complex Lojban.
"I'm sorry Jument, I don't know what most of those words mean, you want to join us?" she said.
He beeped a simple confirmation tone.
"One day, perhaps, if the Captain agrees?" she said, "He's your new owner now."
A loud ship's horn blares on the recording.
"OK! Goodbye sweet Jument, thank you for everything." Leila said, voice getting quieter.
"We'll be in our new home," She shouted from afar,
"Look for us in Longyearbyen!"

The rest of Jument's logs show that he did, indeed, become a vital part of the evacuation team in the days and months that followed.
But before then, the data shows that he stood, looking in the same direction, for 100 minutes after Leila Tazi said goodbye.
Then, after the ship sailed out of sight with his family on board, he dutifully broadcast Leila's recording:

This will be my last transmission, Fia.
I'm speaking to you from the docks of Ålesund on the island of Nørvøya.
Jean and Flo are already safely on board the ship.
Jument can't come with us, there's no room for him, so I've entrusted him to Captain Svoboda, he'll be helping him out with the evacuation here in the city.
I thought we could have made Freetown Copenhagen our new home.
It was almost perfect, the people and the society they are building feels so safe, so welcoming.
Like The Collapse never happened.
But I know it has.
I wanted to ignore the evidence of my own eyes, but it was all around us in Copenhagen: Water sources drying up, plants failing.
"Only a minor setback", people told us, they had in place clever plans for next season, of course.
I have seen too much to gamble our children's future on such a hope.
After a week, and with a heavy heart, we moved on again, this time travelling alone on fishing boats up the coast.
We were so afraid to return to Sweden. We kept hidden below decks while the fishers were ashore at market, but soon enough we had made it across the border to Norway.
There are many people like us here in Ålesund, all with the same idea to keep travelling north.
Most are going to Tromsø, the most northerly town in the country, but we are going even further.

We have found a ship here, the Bondar, that is going all the way to the islands of Svalbard, deep into the Arctic.
This is where we will make our new home, I am certain, and not just us, but the hundreds of people on the ship, with more arriving every day.
I will work hard for our new home, Sofia, my love, to honour your memory, and for our children's future.

And perhaps one day, when the work is done, I will see you again.
I love you.

(END-TRANSMISSION)