Hope

Hope by Samuel Ramratan.

A parallel machine?
Sure why not?
Kristi looked over from her desk, traffic had stopped at Kiki, the water dispenser. Outside traffic had already snarled on all bridges off the island. She wanted to go home to her well deserved long weekend and was hoping what was said was not going to trigger a brainstorming session where she would have to take all notes.

"Forget any parallel machine, sleep on it, giving it time will help, over the weekend, over the weekend", she thought out, as she tried influencing with confluencing mind power. Kristi slowed her mental notioning-potions as she secretly called it, to listen to, those two top engineers stuck between ramparts. "What's its main purpose?" queried our chief engineer, who also owned our plainly successful operation.

"To record and classify all information", our recently acquired, outstanding designer engineer, who only seemed way past brilliant, replied but not without some hand waving. Kristi turned quiet and kept her still inside, she saw the busy bridges losing its traffic, up on her way home, the way this conversation was taking its turn.

"Turn left, turn left, not right, not right", she notion-potioned, then nodded, smiling at the two men. They smiled back to her horror as she felt her evening disappearing up into her throat.

. . .

Kristi tired to the bone switched gears as she pulled off the bridge using a left turn still feeling strangely excited. A new tingling that nagged her alert kept her going. She liked what she had heard. This new parallel machine venture would keep them in business for a long time...

"I'm surprised."

Silence kept pace with time.

"I do have a heartbeat, if only a faint one"

Silence returned like the plague kicking dust in every face.

Ominous silence continued, contagious through every instant, gathering its force and then releasing itself with a bang.

"You are very old" said the at first silent ones, while the recently recovered specimen was inquiring about their health.

"We are not sure what to do with you now that you are recovered." said a member of the party, ignoring the question.

"What have the laws changed?" said the dusty looking thing and continued with
"I can't believe that I've counted one hundred thousand years while waiting to recover."

The man from the search party laughed, the other who had spoken at first was not as pleased.

"We are in one-oh-two,oh-oh-one AD."

"AD it's the same as before, what's changed, out there?"

"We're moving" worded the man.

"Moving what do you mean?"

"No time for debate, we'll drop you off at someone nearby who is staying but you'll have to rest a while"


"What's all this" the machine demanded as they disconnected its external power source.

Part II
=======

"I want to die with the spirits here"

"I'm nodding" replied the machine.

The man laughed but it was a nervous laugh, full of sentiments, fear perhaps.

"They will be waving goodbye when its early dawn", he cried softly, with a tear.

"Things have really changed, moved way on", mumbled the machine, cryptically.



Part III
========

They said that it's 15 generations to the promised land.

"I'm a descendant of the captain-family that brought that message back to Earth on the family-ship "Hope".

"One of my recent ancestors volunteered to rescue anyone left on Earth. It was decided by the time we got back which would have been eight generations anyone left would have been finding it difficult to survive and would have wanted to return with us"

"What happened", asked the machine.

"There are none left", he replied dejectedly, "Earth is dead".

"I have a heartbeat", said the machine, "If only a faint one".

The man laughed, hollowness crept into his voice.

"They all wanted to die among the spirits here", the machine tried telling him.

"And be consumed by a crumbling, dying part of our universe", the man laughed again.

"Life gravitates towards the center, at where all real intelligent species will one day converge".

"That's another place Earth spirits go, toward that center of our solar system.", the machine commented.


Part IV
=======

"We had a dream there were buried artifacts on Uro", blurted the thing.

"Earth, it was called Earth", puffed the machine.

"Were they all like you", puffed the thing.

"No they were Human, they created me, from their minds, with spirits, using metallic Earth dust", hummed the machine in rhythmic tones.

"My processor overflowed once counting years, I have been waiting to be revived", poeted the machine.

"You were very difficult to revive as you say", hummed, the thing, "but why do you speak so strangely, you are just a machine".

"I may be a machine but I have a heartbeat, if only a faint one", resounded the machine, "but now I feel I have a special place here on Earth".

"Your land is all craters and valleys", scoffed the thing. "There is no life here".

"I am the life here", tarted the machine.

"I am the naked reminder of a civilization that once evolved on this Earth, revolving around it", the machine sang out, "it was a great civilization", "and I will remain on this Earth, always ready to tell a tale, or to find out how long I have been resting, waiting for all juicy updates", "Tell them for me at the center of civilization, I have survived".

"We call things like you fossils on Horeh", so we will have to take you back with us, besides we are broadcasting live back home"

"Say hi to the audience".

"I can't leave Earth, I love this land, I love this land", cried Kristi's Earth Machine. bleep.