Tag: Future

File: “Ai’s Progress”

Yesterday, I decided to go back to work.

Well, by work, I mean working on “our daughter,” Ai. The robot. The AI I was coding. Not the body. Not for now.

After months of no help from our sponsoring countries, I’m pretty sure the only people around here are insane. I meet one or two whenever I go for a nice walk around town. They’re nice for conversation, but they’re always pretty boring to me.

I’m probably insane and boring to them, too. But oh well.

Back to Ai. I’ve had enough equipment from my old job at the Robotics Lab downtown for a while now, but I never really wanted to commit to doing anything with it all. Sure, it’s been hooked up and all organized down around our basement and upstairs in our kitchen. But, like, why would I want to go back to work if no one cares? I mean, we didn’t exactly get payment in the traditional sense. Just food coupons to eat out and rewards for good work in the form of more resources to print with or imported commodities. Now, though? Don’t tell anyone, but I’m pretty sure I have unlimited access to the banks for all of Seattle.

There’s a surprisingly low amount of Helium and Platinum considering what we got access to at the lab.

Wait, hold on, my bad. I’m talking about Ai, not the city.

So anyway, using Alice’s GEmS setup to house the quantum computing portions, I’ve once again begun beating my head into a quantum brick wall. Just like before, it’s still super stupid how fiddly chaining those bastards can be. To be honest, I don’t want to go near the hardware if I can help it. I’m just fighting the battles in how I want to manage my custom compiler for this hardware setup versus how I want to then write the quantum coding in relation to what I’m trying to physically get out of those stupid electrons. At least I think they were electrons. I call them qbits. Sadly, I didn’t invent that name. But I would have thought of it even if I hadn’t of seen it before. It’s logical and unintrusive.

Shit, the AI itself.

Right, well. Then. Okay, it’s not going so well. I think I broke it a little. But not too badly.

See, I’ve gone and screwed with how her nodes are set up and stuff. I figured she’d be fine. But when I tried to revert the previous version, a lot of errors kept coming up. I’m not sure what I did on accident but I’m pretty sure I screwed my backups while organizing all the crap I brought over. A little bit of a whoops.

Of course, I do have versions from over a year ago. But that’d be really crappy to revert to.

So I’m currently trying to copy the bits I messed up and sneak in a few adjustments for this current version and pray I don’t have to go back again. Otherwise, I’m going to hate my life.

On the plus side, I’m getting very suspicious that this health booster thing isn’t just a short term kinda thing but a like, very long term one. I might get like, fifty bonus years to deal with this myself. On the minus side, I think the team that we were guinea pigs for might not be around anymore. Their lab was a bit trashed and I’ve not run into anyone that worked there. Hope there aren’t any side-effects I’m about to come across.

I guess I’ll make a new record of when I make some decent progress on Ai.

For now, I’m just trying to get used to thinking of her as a daughter.

It makes it easier to want to do a good job.

Especially without Alice. She’s the one who always pushed me to work hard. Now I have to do that on my own.

Future Notes:

The lab working on the “age-freeze cocktail,” as I like to call it, was indeed abandoned. Still had enough on file and stored away to investigate years later. I even let Alice have a look at it, though that was a very long time ago, now.

As for my work on Ai…well, it’s sort of a never-ending project. She’s better. A lot better. But still, it’s just not right. Ever reach for an infinitesimally close door, but you’re never able to reach it? I’ve looked up an old parable and there’s a general version of the same idea:

A rabbit and a tortoise meet in a forest one day. The rabbit says it can beat the slow reptile in a footrace because it’s got amazing legs that let it bounce half the entire course in one jump. The tortoise takes on the rabbit despite many other animals attempting to dissuade it. But the tortoise says it walks at a respectable foot per hour and the race is only one mile. Apparently, this was supposed to sound good. Yet after the flag goes down, and the rabbit bounds half a mile in one jump, the tortoise doesn’t show signs of anxiety or fear. Bizarrely, the rabbit keeps slacking off after each jump, thinking it’s always in the lead with half a mile distance of safety. But as the race wraps up to the 220th day, the rabbit notices a critical flaw in how it jumps. Suddenly, it can’t keep up with the tortoise because it -can only jump half the remaining distance to the goal-. At some point, the rabbit doesn’t even appear to move a hair as it keeps trying to hop that last hop. In the last minute of the race, the tortoise saunters over the finish line while the rabbit cries out to its creators why it was cursed with such a stupid restriction in movement. The tortoise, full of pride and joy in achieving its goal, asks the rabbit if it had ever tried to reach a goal before. But the rabbit stormed off and played video games like it always did in its free-time. Of course, it never beat a single one.

I took a few liberties in explaining the story because there’s a few that have some similar parts.

Anyway, if you could only go halfway to an end-goal, you’d never get there no matter how big the first jump would be. Try increasing the power to a 1/2 fraction and I’m pretty sure “1” or “undefined” shows up when your computer is sick of your shit.

That’s how I feel Ai and I are right now. So close to the goal I want for her. But I’m just not quite there, yet. And progress has become a crawl.

I miss the days of this memory.

File: “Dear Valentine”

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I want to be dead,

Where are you?

Wait. No, I have a better one.

Roses aren’t in bloom,

Neither are violets,

I will bring you doom,

and it will be violent.

Hold on, I can do better…

Okay, I’m back. This time I’ve thought of a really good one. Took me hours.

Roses Death Death,

Violets Death Death,

Death Death Death,

Death Death Death.

Why do you get a freaking portal

Only you control,

I want Doraemon’s Dokodemo Doa,

So I can uh, patrol. Shit

Roses aren’t blue,

Violets are,

You know what I’m going to do,

Rawr. This is stupid.

Fuck Valentine’s Day

I’m going to kill you,

You left me this way,

What else was I supposed to do?

Kill me Kill me,

Please please please,

you’ll see you’ll see me

dead in my own feces. In plastic bags.

I have trauma,

thanks to you,

nothing rhymes with trauma,

fuck you, too.

My nightmwares are shitty,

in some i eaty shitty food,

that vault trick was neat with the gstun-gin

wait fuck roses are redder

vioalets are ermp, bluer?

one of us is, dead-er? yeah

and waitt. Fleur? that’s ffRench for “Flower”/

AAAAAAAAAAAAAND SAVE THISS TH THIS SHIT! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !! ! !

Future Notes:

I was drunk

Memory Log:

The first time I met Alice was pretty boring. Her side of the story is a lot more interesting than mine, really.

When I think of it, I was just sitting in a free-use computer cafe at the edge of the university when a young Alice waked up and started asking about what I was doing and other boring icebreaker questions.

I found an interesting recording the other day, though. While I’ve heard Alice talk about how we met, I seem to remember even what she said all wrong. But then again, this is why I’m writing down any memories before my mind disassembles them into new ones. Here’s the full recording, but it’s hard to hear.

Just to make it easier for me if I ever forget again,

* * * here’s the conversation’s transcription * * *

New coworker named Brian Kim (B): What are you eating? That looks really good.

Alice (A): Hey, you’re Brian, right? I’m Alice. Glad to have an electrician to help me with the hardware.

B: Oh, yeah. That’s right. Nice to meet you, too.

* * * Blah blah blah, small talk skip this * * *

A: Anyway, this is just a panini. At least, that’s what Beth’s Bakery calls it. I feel like it’s a made-up word, personally.

B: Well it sure looks delicious! (short laugh)

A: (Sympathetic laugh) I think I’d prefer to bring my own food, but I never seem to have. I admire your ability to bring a sack lunch.

B: What, this? I just punched in a few basic items in my apartment’s vending machine. I feel lucky the machines here can print on-demand. But I think I miss some of the more interesting snacks I used to buy every day in Korea.

A: What city are you from? I’m sorta from the old US, technically, but I grew up near Busan.

B: (Speaks Korean. Something about being from a sub-city of Seoul.)

A: (Speaks a little Korean back, apologizing that she’ prefers English.)

B: Oh, no problem.

(Some time passes while they eat.)

B: So how long have you been working here?

A: A few years. Since the lab opened, actually.

B: No way, that’s crazy! You must have already lived here. Were you part of the university?

A: Yes, I was. My parents didn’t really have much to support me once I grew old enough for school and they knew I wanted to make robots. Something in them thought I should be a part of the NAC’s first city, so I ended up studying from when I was a teenager.

B: So you’ve been here for ten years?

A: Almost fifteen, actually.

B: What!? I can’t believe that unless you were sent here when you were barely thirteen or something like that!

A: I had just turned sixteen when I arrived.

B: (Face full of shock) You look way too young to be thirty. I mean, I know what they say about Asians like you and me, but still. You look like my sister! She’s two years older than me, and she’s twenty-three!

* * * This is the important part * * *

A: (Laughs more comfortably) I remember being that age. That’s about when I met my husband, actually.

B: Who’s that? I think I’ve seen a guy in the main office you talk to often…is he your husband?

A: That’s right. His name is Victor.

(They both finish their food and look at a clock. Presumably, they see there’s still time for their lunch break)

A: Want to hear about how we met?

B: I guess I am a little curious. Especially if it was around the massive NSU. I haven’t gotten a chance to see it, but I’ve only heard crazy things from articles I’ve read while I was in high school and college back in Seoul.

A: Okay, I’ll tell you how it went down. But only because it’s just too much fun to talk about. You can even go bug Victor later if you want, though he might be unhappy with you for a few days for knowing such a story before even meeting him properly. Just make sure to tell him I told you (smiles with a wide grin).

B: I…I think I’ll pass. I don’t want to make him upset. I’m still new here, after all.

A: Your loss, then. I think his reaction would be quite entertaining. But anyway, about how we met. So, I was studying for a particularly boring lecture. My instructor was probably angry about how he had to teach mechanical engineering. I believe he worked both in one of the earliest research labs while also instructing advanced classes like that sixth-year course. He was always upset that he was told to avoid introducing his own work as examples, I believe. Anyway, that made him cranky. And he took it out on us. If we weren’t pretty advanced students deep into our education, I bet most of us would have dropped out. But there were only seven students in my class. I think we were pretty hard-core, all things considered. But yeah, I was at a computer-cafe at the edge of campus. I didn’t normally go out that far, but I had just left a career counseling office for work placement. Which, by the way, was under that very same instructor and his research team. I believe the first project they were working on was something about better reflective and solar panels for newer building in the city. They were working together with some material specialists and a civil engineer. (Shakes her head) But about how we met: I went into that cafe where I never would have normally and sat down to go over some lecture videos and compare my notes. I went up to get a drink. I really like places like that. I think I got some soda to drink. Nowadays I go for tea and water more often, but I still sneak some pop now and then. But the funny thing was that as I went to sit down and resume my lecture video, but before I put on my headphones, Victor came up with his own flavorless soda water in hand saying something like, (changes voice to imitate me) “That stuff is old, you know. Is that for your class?”

B: Wow, that’s pretty random to tell to a stranger.

A: Right?! So I removed my headphones and went to reply, but he just continued saying stuff like “it’s just dumb what they make students learn in class” and “I’m sorry your professor either is held back by the institution or is incompetent.” Then he just walked back to his seat without hearing anything from me!

B: I guess I can see him doing that even in the office. It’s my first week, but I think I’ve only seen him busy about himself and his work. You’re the only person I’ve seen interrupt him, and even then he seemed to always be looking back at his work.

A: Well the best part is after he sat down. I finished my video review and took a break. And wouldn’t you guess, he was still in the cafe. That lecture video was an hour long! And going off of how used his glass looked, I began to suspect he’d been in that cafe the entire day! I walked up to see what he was doing, and it couldn’t have been any more boring to me.

B: What’s boring to you?

A: He was programming! It was just a wall of text. I think I remember there being numbers in the several thousands all along the side, numbering each row. But there he was, wearing out his keyboard with impressively fast typing. When I asked what he was working on, he stopped instantly and didn’t move for a few seconds like he’d been frozen solid. It’s actually unbelievable, but he wasn’t used to people talking to him in general. Especially girls, I found out. To this day he can’t tell me what made him comment on my coursework, but it seems that he wasn’t the type to talk to anyone in general.

B: (Laughs) I still see that today! I think he’s the only person I haven’t said a word to…”

A: Well, anyway. I asked him about what he was doing, and soon I had asked him a dozen questions. Something about him was so strange and yet so interesting. And entertaining. I just couldn’t help myself. Most guys either talk small-talk with me or avoid me. I think being tall doesn’t help. But Vic, he just went head-first into explaining everything with his own brand of speech. I think I really appreciate how much he didn’t talk to me as if I wouldn’t understand. Even though I didn’t understand much programming back then, he still tried to talk to me as if I were just as good as he was. So many people in this city, especially back when I looked even younger, talk to you assuming you’re smart but also extremely ignorant about their field. It’s always so awkward and annoying unless you work in the same lab.

* * * And that’s the end of their chat, really. Skip the pleasantries after this * * *

B: (Sees the time) Wow, I guess you’re right. I’ll have to listen to him sometime. But uh, we need to go back to work. It’s already past noon.

A: Oh, damn. I’m sorry. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t get in trouble for staying over. Not that anyone would get all that upset at you, anyway.

(They both get up, throw away their trash into the compost and recycle chutes, and head back into the white hallway that leads to the office.

Looking at this version of the story, I suppose it was me that initiated it all. I always seem to forget that part.

Future Notes:

Alice says she doesn’t regret us meeting. Sometimes, I do. It’s hard to imagine life without meeting her, but I wouldn’t have had to go through all the shit she did to me.

I want to say the shit we did to each other, but I can’t see how it’s even a contest. She has done far more to damage me and our relationship than I could ever dream of doing.

I shouldn’t be writing about this here. There’s no point. It’s just me hurting myself, now. She’s been done with me for ages.

To think I wrote this memory just after she left me. Sure, we weren’t officially “over.” But it was over. I was so hopeful she was just having a bit of an adventure before coming back home. How wrong I was…

Memory Log:

I remember going out after a particularly long Friday night with Alice and some coworkers. It was such a long time ago, though.

But there was one particularly interesting thing about it, of course.

While we were walking to a karaoke box to relax and sing, and by we I mean everyone but me, Alice began talking about an idea that she just thought up out of the blue.

At the time, I thought it was absolutely stupid. Most methods of boson trapping and control had been difficult, to say the least, especially when trying to chain entangled fermions in any reasonable number for computations. Sure, we were using the old methods from back in the 2030s, and that did the job and all, but there was just too much room for tunneling electrons, and we always had to bulk up the hardware and the software to make up for the large error margin.

Well, first she hit me across the shoulder and only after calling me something stupid did she actually announce to the group and me her a new idea. And it was a great idea, eventually. It took about a few years to start getting results. To be honest, I never thought you could just forcibly abuse sheet after sheet of molecular graphite and just make a Matryoshka box to contain each qbit. It greatly reduced the error rate of the older methods without having to keep searching for the more extreme quark/gluon styles of quantum computing.

Other than that, I recall sitting in a dark corner, mulling over the possible reductions in error-recognizing and adjustment code. Not to mention how irritating it had been to work with hardware that tried to slowly fry itself.

This ended up being the exact thing we needed to really get going forward on what soon became our main project, AI. The NAC loved what we had done and even thought more research not just beyond the nano-scale but back into more complex AI was greatly needed.

Future Notes:

The trouble I went through because of her great idea…and with such a dumb name as GEmS.

Reviewing my knowledge of the system at the time of first writing my memory of this event, there’s one additional bit of design that’s important to the functionality: fractals. Though it wasn’t in the first design, Alice later adapted old archived research on trapping electrons within a sort of fractal maze. While the tests from that old paper used something else, Alice focused on a more detailed matrix of carbon and quartz. The name she came up was before she started locking the electrons in using the quantum fractals, but since it still used graphene, she decided to keep the name. Graphene Electromagnetic Trapping System. GETS was my suggestion, but apparently, that was too boring.

I’m not certain, but I have enough proof that our AI development was one of the main sources of fear from the many other nations that funded the attack on New Seattle. Some also claim we were trying to build an even worse nano-disaster than the Steel Virus.

Also, it’s funny how I can pull up a record of songs we sang that night, but I can’t find any video recordings. I suppose there’s value in song analytics, but there’s little in over-monitoring and retaining long, space-hogging video files.

I forgot how much Alice liked to sing romantic songs and how much I liked to sing old kids show themes…we must have been very drunk.

Either that or I’m remembering my coworkers all wrong. But I’m pretty sure they were more normal than we were.

File: “FuckYouAliceWhereTheFuckAreYou”

(Continued)

I’m so confused about what I’m supposed to do, now.

The NAC left the rest of us to put things back together. Or to die. I’m not sure. After the first relief forces came, there were fewer and fewer of us left in the city. It’s pretty hard to get in or out without some sort of transport.

But we were warned. I had plenty of time to leave.

Where was I supposed to go, though?

Alice wanted me to go to her fantasy world. Something about the adventure must have gotten to her head. I can’t believe she’d leave her life behind on a whim.

Why didn’t I agree and follow her?

This city is dead. Like a disease. No, like a virus. It still runs after the NAC’s relief workers went around and fixed the power. But everyone left. Yet the city still works like it always did. The lights turn on, the subways loop around, the doors open for me…

I’m not entirely alone, but I feel like those who stayed are even more insane than I am. They feel distant. Like something’s wrong with them. Like their brains are freaking empty.

Zombies.

This city and its people are zombies.

Fuck. Am I a zombie, too? Dammit all.

<Break>

So anyway. Today’s been fun. Alice told me months ago that she’d come back before her birthday. I’m still pretty pissed off. Not about her not coming back on time, of course. That’s honestly whatever.

I was being a bit mopey and dumb about it yesterday but I guess it got me writing more stupid diary nonsense to myself.

There’s just nobody to talk to. I don’t really have any friends.

It’s her fault. She wouldn’t let me have friends. Well, at least she used to do that, back when we were dating. I never tried again once we were married.

And she’s gone like five fucking minutes and then BAM she has weird alien human friends from a magic nonsense world. Not that I’d know about that place from experience. There’s enough going on here to worry about.

At least, there was.

<Break>

And another thing! She always had friends back in the lab. I was the third friend wheel! The poor sap that just followed everyone else, standing in the back while they all had fun! Even though she’s literally my life-partner! So what if I was a little boring to her, she could stand to be interested in the things I like for once.

If she even comes back.

<Break>

Fuck, am I fucked?

She wouldn’t divorce me or anything, would she?

<Break>

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfufkfuckfuckfufkcufkckkkkkkkKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!1!!!1!DAMMMMMMMMMMNITTTTTALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLl

<Break>

I’m so stupid. Why else would she be spending months over there? She hardly spent a week the first time, came back here, then left after only a few weeks back! Then she was gone for almost a whole fucking month! Then, what, back for a few days?

What was it she had told me, back before this whole shittastrophe? “Oh, but Vic, we gotta care about our daughter! What would we ever do withouuuuttt heeeerrrrrr?”

<Break>

I’m going to go find Ai and rebuild her myself. Screw Alice. Why do I have to abandon our home and our “child” you used to care about so much just so you can have fun dancing about with your new friends?

Maybe when you come back and see Ai talking again, you’ll regain your senses.

<Break>

It’s cold as hell. Pulling heavy shit across town through a few inches of snow was probably not my brightest idea. Did it three more times anyway.

But of course, the downstairs is still a mess. I shouldn’t have put it off…

I’m going to work myself to death.

Future Notes:

Not sure if this was all done on the same day. Put in markers where I think I come back and wrote more.

Ai and her parts were heavy and annoying to carry all the way back home.

There was no one from the lab still living in New Seattle, and our government seemed to care not what we did. I decided to haul off any equipment I could manage and begin setting up shop in our downstairs “bunker.”

Speaking of which, I believe I had to spend a few extra hours cleaning out the small mess a group of survivors had made way back in July when the attack happened. At least I think that’s what I was cleaning. I didn’t have a camera down there until much later, when I started expanding the space. But there was footage of me carrying cleaning supplies down and then back up a few hours later.

I can’t remember what kind of mess it was. Judging from the video, there was at least a little blood involved. Not that I had any clue as to their fate: whoever was in there had left by the time Alice and I were brave enough to check.

File: “FuckYouAliceWhereTheFuckAreYou”

(Copied from file)

It’s Alice’s Birthday today…

Future Notes:

This was the first day I decided to write a journal since the first few I did on my phone when I was stuck in the storage vault. It was also the first day I stopped keeping myself busy and just wandered around town. The snow was unusually deep and still fresh despite days of it being around. I remember looking behind me and seeing paths of footprints all belonging to me. I believe that’s what made me realize just how alone I was.

At the time, there were still hundreds of residents still in the city. Most had been evacuated by the NAC. I’m not sure if I wanted to go with Alice when she offered the chance months ago, but I know I was too angry with her lack of reason to admit that I didn’t want her to go again.

This log continues over several days because I didn’t bother marking each entry with which day I wrote. I later added dates, and much later on I began to just create new files for each day I decided to write something. I wasn’t exactly planning to write as much as I eventually did, after all. The dates for the next few entries are assumed from the file creation date, final modification date, and guesswork for anything in between.

Time Logs (24 hour):

(Copied from source)

0415:

I’ve spent the last several hours going through what I have access to and what I can do with any of it. I didn’t think so much time could pass so quickly, but I feel so close to giving up entirely that I can’t stop trying anymore.

I’m one long break away from curling up and crying.

0651:

The lights outside my vault just turned back on. That means the elevator should work again.

There had to have been a backup generator keeping air flowing and the vault’s outlets on. I wonder if they installed outlets like that to keep a backup server running when in case the power ever went out? Not that we kept anything hooked up down here…

0703:

If anyone tries to come down that elevator, I’m going to either attack them or try and hide.

What am I supposed to do if there’s more than one?

0711:

What if Alice comes back and I try to attack her? Can I somehow see who it is first and still have enough time to stop someone I don’t know? How can I know it’s an ally or not when I don’t know for sure who might be trying to help and who might be coming to kill me?

Dammit Alice! You didn’t think enough about the situation you’ve put me into!

0823:

So here’s the plan:

I’ve charged the other stun-guns. I’m pretty sure one is missing…Alice has that one. Anyway, they’re pretty much good for one shot at range and then you have to hook it back up to the printer adapter to refuel the hooks. But knowing how long these things have been around, I wouldn’t be surprised if they misfire. I’m going to keep one in short-range mode like a knife and the other two as ranged options. I’m currently trying to fashion a belt to hold them all.

Meanwhile, I’ve moved a few heavy things like the shelves and some boxes in front of the elevator exit as a temporary barrier. I tried to keep boxes full of small, sharp things with me in the vault in case they use some sort of explosive to blast away my makeshift wall.

I’m also thinking about making a spear out of some of these metal scraps here in the vault. Nothing looks very sword-like, and I can’t really lift any of the larger pieces like a shield. And anyway, I don’t think I can stop bullets. The best I can do is have a spear or two and a few knife-shaped things. What did they call makeshift knives? Snakes? That’s got to be wrong…

0901:

Working with metal kinda sucks. I don’t know how Alice does it.

0951:

And there it happened. Cut my left palm. Dammit all.

Thank goodness I organized all this stored stuff down here. I did sorta bleed a few drops down my jeans and also onto a box that on-top of the other box under another box where the bandages were. And there’s not a weird bloody half-hand mark where I lifted. I’m pretty sure I don’t have any diseases so oh well, it’s not going to hurt anyone anyway.

1213:

So.

I’ve been sitting here, ready to jump at anything or anyone that comes through those doors. I think these stun-guns are supposed to work on most drones, though those things would probably be shielded or dodge the ranged charges. Hopefully the small space will make it easier to land a hit.

But yeah, this is just stupid. It’s mind-numbing. I’ve run out of things to do and now I’m just waiting to die in a blaze of glory (in my head; not likely to happen in reality).

So yeah.

Fuck you, Alice.

You better come back and also say something as the doors open before I zap you.

Unless you really did zap me on Tuesday. Then you can get zapped back.

Fair is fair.

1333:

New bag time.

1418:

I was really hungry but I almost threw up while I was changing bags.

It took almost an hour to recover my hunger.

Future Notes:

@ 1500 or so I ended up falling asleep

I’ve since deleted the video to save space and data noise, but it was very uneventful. I was looking at something on my phone until I passed out along the same wall as the elevator doors, tucked into the corner.

Sometime after, my phone lost charge. I believe it was a habit of mine to watch different recent presentations from other researchers from Seattle. If I had to guess, it was probably around the time I was looking into the “old’ Organic Engineering “Systems,” or (OED). They were going on about how we should continue research in older growing methods while continuing the use of printers. At the time, I found it a bit trite but it was still interesting to watch them show off their ideas. I’ve since warmed up to their presented and conceptual prototypes, developing some of the hydroponic and aquaponic farming methods further. My current favorite crop is probably beets. I still wouldn’t recommend growing produce for entire nations, but it’s a nice commodity to have…

I’m still surprised that I didn’t wake when Alice and her new friends from Andoa showed up and eventually got past my crappy blockade just past @ 2000. My insomnia aside, I think it was the earphones that muffled the sounds. That and, apparently, they didn’t think to call out my name for some dumb reason. I mean, the vault door wasn’t even fully closed. It wasn’t -that- dark that they couldn’t tell, surely.

Either way, I didn’t get to stab or shock anyone. Not for quite a while, at least. You never can live life without at least one good scuffle. I’ve been in quite a few at this point, but I was lucky to avoid them back then. I’d have lost immediately.

@ 2002: Video showing the whole exchange with Alice is here

Time Logs (24 hour):

(Copied from source)

0057:

It’s time.

0115:

The door opened easily. There’s no locking it again, now.

The elevator has been much more stubborn. While it’s probably a good thing the power is out, it sure makes opening this steel clam a nightmare. What I’d give for a good crowbar.

0123:

My hands hurt. The bits of metal I have with me weren’t designed for prying things open. Most of them bent before budging the door. The angle is all wrong.

And of course I still can’t get a connection from down here. That, or the network is down. But I can’t imagine the whole city turning off.

Maybe there’s just a local outage. Even with shielding, maybe an EMP would still disrupt nearby services? It’s annoying, nonetheless.

0201:

I finally got it open. Had to take a couple of breaks to recover my strength and find better methods of entry. It took driving several wedges across the door and many more rods bent or broken, but I finally got a grip good enough to pull the way open.

…that just rhymed.

0209:

I took a moment to shine my phone into the dark and found the way up was blocked. While there seemed to be a little space to the sides, I really don’t think I can fit between there. Not to mention how high up I’d have to climb.

Nope. Not even going to try.

0330:

What would happen if I found a way to cut the cable?

Not that I even see a cable. I’m guessing it’s covered by one of those box-shaped bands of metal going up along the wall.

The way down isn’t super far. But I bet someone would hear the crash. Would it even crash?

I forget how much I use the network’s archives. I would have just looked up our blueprints and used a calculator to model it falling. But no, there’s hardly a thing this hunk of plastic and metal can do for me right now. Instead, I have a glorified pad of paper with built-in flashlight and alarm clock.

0401:

I sneezed and nearly spilled my mucky meal. Sucks to have to dribble food out of a cup. It’s like a really bad fruit smoothie. A smoothie where you tried to mix everything with your bare hands. However strange it might be to imagine, but there was once a time where people actually risked their digits putting whole fruits into a blade trap called a “blender.” Alice thought I was making stuff up until I walked her to the museum. Apparently, just an archive page with detailed images wasn’t enough to convince her.

She ended up forgetting about all the other cool machines and spent our walk home talking about how cool the big stone bowl thing with a small stone club was. I think it was called a Mortar & Presser? Once again, can’t verify anything without access to the city network.

Mortar sounds wrong…I can’t go five minutes without wishing I had a database to reference.

0546:

Yeah, plan failed. Guess I’m waiting until the lights shine.

The lights to the lab or the lights to the afterlife, whichever happens first.

0551:

I really don’t want to be stuck down here until I starve to death.

0729:

I woke up from a really shitty nightmare.

Literally. I dreamed I had to eat my own defecation to survive.

The weird part was that I was actually how I was stranded on an ice sheet. At least I think it was. I felt really cold and the ground was really hard and whitish. There was also seagulls there.

Man, my dreams get really bizarre sometimes.

0745:

Of course I have to relieve myself.

It smells weird. Rather, it doesn’t smell like much at all. Really weird. Still came out like a river.

I’m starting a new bag. Maybe this ration food leaves little waste or something? Also, I don’t feel like opening the old bag. The smell just kept getting worse each time I unsealed it. And the stench just sits around for half an hour after, too. Really shitty.

1709:

So I found some more soft-ish things to add to my bed. Don’t know what they are. Some sort of synthetic fabric, maybe? And there was a bit of cushy wall-looking boards stacked behind some boxes I mostly left alone before.

Now my bed is slightly less cold and a good bit taller.

Now I can fall out of it and though it wouldn’t hurt, I’d have to wake up a bit to climb back in. At least, I think I would wake up. Alice never told me if I sleep-walked or not. She just complained about occasional snoring and kicking.

1731:

Alice…

1821:

I have to get out of here.

There’s got to be some way to climb up the elevator shaft.

Man, it would suck if the power came on and the elevator went back down while I was climbing. I need to try and measure the space behind the elevator where those sticky-outty bits were. maybe I can squeeze through, somehow? I’m not getting any thicker with my current diet, that’s for sure.

2011:

I spent at least an hour trying to find parts of some crazy contraption to measure the gap along the back wall of the elevator shaft. Long story short: I’m going to have to attach my phone to the end of a stick to scout above the elevator after I put bigger things on the end until something fits past.

I wish I were more creative.

Alice would have been much better at designing a better way to measure that distance with the parts available…

I’m going to be so angry at her when I see her again. I still can’t believe she did that!

2029:

It broke. Shit.

2254:

Good news: I can fit.

Bad news: I -barely- fit. Probably. I might not fit anyway. My method of measurement was a bit shaky and unreliable.

Really dumb news: Local Man Crushed by Elevator.

2307:

Man, if I die like that, I might not even get a cool headline like that if the city is deserted…

Fuck these people, whoever they are. Killing everyone I know is one thing, but they might even ruin my legacy if I die down here.

2345:

I was just tinkering around with random things when I realized something.

My legacy will be even worse.

Someone will find the ruins of New Seattle one day and discover a strange cave where the remains of a man lay buried in pristine plastic bags full of preserved human feces and urine. I’ll be the modern pharaoh that was buried with random tools, archaic electronic devices, and his own waste products.

I’m going to curse whoever opens this vault. Maybe death by bug bite infection, like that one guy back in the 19th century. That’d be fun.

Future Notes:

Turns out there probably wasn’t anyone in our lab anymore. They cut the power off most the city, physically severing cables when they found them. I believe they became frustrated after being unable to locate any useful information locked away in some of the city’s data centers spread across town. Looking back at some of the recovered reports, there were several access attempts but nothing made it through. I bet they thought about just taking the servers with them, but there were just far too many to bother doing so.

Instead, they ended up going around until they found a shelter with valuable people to hold ransom. Part of cutting power off was to see if they could force everyone out of the well-fortified shelters, most likely.

The worst event I found evidence for was the gassing of a particularly large shelter to presumably flush everyone out. Out of the total capacity, it seemed that at least half, or two hundred, died before they could make it outside again.

Time Logs (24 hour):

(Copied from source)

0003:

My sleep is ruined.

I don’t know if I want to try and sleep again, or if I’ll just sleep when I’m tired enough.

0012:

I’m going to make a bed out of some foam and a pillow out of a few of the food rations. Then, I’m going to sleep. Even if it takes hours.

0049:

This bed sucks.

0100:

Right. Goodnight. Sweet dreams, me.

0209:

Listening to music didn’t help. Listening to books didn’t help.

Normally, they did the trick.

A part of me doesn’t want to sleep with headphones in. Probably the part of me that wants a chance at living.

0314:

I heard a gun fire. It woke me up. Only one shot, though. There hadn’t been any sounds of gunfire in quite a while.

I’m kind of glad I gave up on music. I almost forgot why I’m down here.

0745:

I can’t stay asleep any longer. I need a plan.

1012:

Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking.

If I leave the vault, I can’t lock myself in. The door will close and soft-lock, but it can be opened by pulling on the handle. The locking console won’t let me set a timer or anything like that. Also, if the main power is out, I’m not sure the console will be on the backup generator for the building.

Therefore, I can only leave once.

However, it seems the elevator entrance hasn’t been found. Or, it’s not functional. If it’s down, I might be able to sneak my way out.

The next issue will be the gas. I assume it’s safe enough to go outside, but I have no way of knowing until I leave here and I can get a connection again.

I have no way to know if the attackers are right above me, still. If they are, they aren’t stomping around anymore. But that could just mean they’re not moving, or there’s only one or two of them.

I really don’t know.

I think I’m scared.

1108:

One more day. I’ll wait just one more day.

Then I’m opening the door.

I must know what’s going on outside.

If Alice locked me in here to help me, she didn’t think it through properly. I’m completely at the mercy of my environment while waiting for help in here. But what if she can’t come back. What if there is no help?

What if something happened to her?

Alice…

1339:

Eating more of the nasty food was actually not so bad this time. Maybe I’m too distracted.

Alice.

I really hope she’s okay. She’s so stubborn! I hope she didn’t get herself caught. Or killed…

1403:

It’s my fault she ran off. It’s my fault I’m stuck down here.

It’s my fault if she was taken. It’s my fault if she was killed.

I shouldn’t have argued. I never argue with her. It’s never worth it. She’s not often wrong, and it doesn’t matter in the end when she is wrong. Arguing with her gave her the idea to split up.

Was I wrong? I think we should have stayed down here. Even if we couldn’t, we should have stayed together.

But she didn’t want to listen. She didn’t even want me to come with her. She told me it was statistically better to split up. But she didn’t factor in using two minds in one place to stay safe together.

I should have exercised with her every morning. I should have spoken up more often. Then she wouldn’t have the reason that I can’t keep up with her in a clean suit. Then she wouldn’t feel like she’s always right.

It’s my laziness. It’s because I take the path of least resistance.

If she’s dead, it’ll be because I couldn’t stop her. I listened to her. I believed her quick lie. I turned my back to open the vault. I let her knock me out with one of the self-defense stun-guns we kept stored down here.

1409:

I finished eating my pack of yuck. It was slightly tastier from the small amount of salt that fell into it.

Maybe there’s some salt and pepper stashed in one of the last few boxes I haven’t opened, yet.

1655:

I’m not done searching through all the boxes. I’ve sorted about half of the boxes, but I haven’t shuffled the things inside much.

I think I’m going to take a nap. I feel so drained.

1801:

I want another hour. I didn’t sleep well.

1921:

Okay. Two snoozes later. I can’t sleep a whole night now, but I really needed to rest again. I think this should do.

Maybe it’ll help. I might try and sneak out tonight, a little past midnight. That might be the best time.

There’s nothing to make a decent gas mask out of, so I’m just going to tie a hand-towel I found around my face. I think I am supposed to wet it, but that means I’ll lose some of my water.

I guess I have to.

2105:

I guess I’m lucky. I found some paint supplies. There were face masks! It’s not a gas mask, but it’s probably better than a loose cloth.

2241:

Do you think a paint roller can do decent damage? Maybe I should bring a bit of spare metal, instead. But those things hurt to grip…robot parts weren’t meant to be swung around, I guess.

2345:

I think I’ll focus on getting reception with my phone. Hopefully, the NS network is still up.

Just one more hour. I’m going to wait until 1. Even if I won’t go any further, I must open the door and find out if there’s any updates in the news.

Future Notes:

Alice later explained that she panicked, causing her to lie to me and agree to stay together in the vault with just a soft lock. She said she didn’t want to lose me. She said she would have rather died if I could live. If this were the only thing she did to me, I’d have forgiven her. But it was just the start.

Time Logs (24 hour):

(Copied from source)

0313:

My bathroom time is currently sealed in its own trash bag. I’m not terrible happy about it. I’ll get another 23 bathroom breaks unless I find another box of bags.

The worst part about it might be that the bags are thin and translucent. Who knows how long it will be before I can smell them. I don’t even want to know what it will look like by then.

0314:

I’m hungry.

0320:

These “rations” I have taste like my recycling box.

My recycling box is what I use to take my waste to be recycled. It was from a Chinese delivery service. It’s also about six months old. I’ve never tried to eat it before, but I can’t think of anything else that the “flavor” filling my mouth reminds me more of. It tastes like that one time I sniffed my box. And it tastes sort of like how I remember cardboard tasted when I tried to chew on some as a teenager.

Teenagers are freaking stupid.

Maybe I’m exceptionally stupid. I’m not sure I saw anyone else munching on cardboard back then…

0354:

The backup generator should last far longer than my food supplies. And considering I only see two boxes of bottles full of water, I think my water will run out, first.

I’m just going to fill my time with these logs and messing around with the random boxes of supplies down here.

I’m still hungry, by the way. The food might last longer than my ability to stomach them if I had infinite water. Which I don’t.

0400:

Right. Then. Right, then.

I said I’d write to keep myself sane.

What am I supposed to put in. This is worse than small-talk with my office-mates. Or, worse, random people on the street.

I’m going to sort everything down here to burn time. It’ll be far more interesting than talking to myself.

0519:

Just saying hi. Hi!

Hi.

Ok, break over.

0815:

Breakfast time! Yummy! It’s my favorite! Brown sludge! Time to wash it down with delicious water!

I hate water.

Water tastes like fucking champagne when trying to down this muck. It’s like eating mud. Dry, grainy mud. Not that I know what mud actually tastes like. Cardboard: Yes, sadly. Mud: Thankfully not. Until now, I guess.

These food rations are terrible. Who was supposed to eat these things? Earthworms?

1058:

Another bathroom break.

I’m going to have to reuse some of my empty ration bags at some point…I’m not looking forward to it at all.

Thank the gods there’s some form of air conditioning. But if it’s not connected to the poison outside, what is it connected to? Do I have a limit to my air supply? Did they plan on people staying in the storage vault when they made this place?

If I start getting dizzy, I’m pushing the emergency lever.

Maybe I should make a bed area right under it…

1241:

I’ve finished sorting the parts associated with our current project. It was a lot, but not even a quarter of what’s stored down here.

I enjoyed folding the cables up neatly and wrapping the cords into nice circles.

Since I’m usually stuck at my desk, it was nice getting to see the parts and and

1405:

It looks like I fell asleep earlier. I must have submitted the last entry right before I passed out.

I was going to say “…it was nice getting to see the parts up close. That’s typically what Alice works on. And the others with electrical and material engineering degrees.”

Or something like that.

Ok, sleep time again.

1602:

My head…I need to sleep but my head is killing me.

2033:

Finally got some sleep.

I had a lot of dreams toward the end. And I kept waking up. I think I woke up three or four times. I’m not sure.

But my dreams were mostly pleasant. I had a normal day with Alice. We were just eating lunch somewhere. Then my parents came by for some reason. And then there was a cat? Or was it a dog? I can’t remember that dream so well.

After I woke up for a moment, I went back to New Seattle. But instead of eating lunch in a fuzzy restaurant, Alice and I were walking outside. It was probably hot, but it didn’t feel hot. It was pretty bright, though. I know I had to feel hot. Alice exercises all the time. I’m not a big fan of it, especially when outdoors and in the summer.

The last dream I just woke up from was odd. I was on a base on the moon or something. I know there’s a few of them, though I’ve never seen them before. But I was on a base and there was no one there. I had to run for some reason, though. I don’t know why I was running. It was cold. I heard something following me. It was dark. I woke up before it got worse.

My body probably needed me to wake up. I don’t blame its reasoning.

2049:

More mud. Water plus grit equals a nutritious diet.

I’m going to have nightmares of this “food,” aren’t I?

2101:

I’m not a fan of the bathroom situation. I’m going to hold it in until I can make some sort of toilet out of the things down here.

2110:

Nevermind, it was urgent.

Yuck.

I’m going to make a bathroom. Just had to go, first. I still need some cleanliness and organization.

I also don’t feel like throwing up from the stench.

2319:

Well, it’s a start.

If they come in and find me here, I’m going to torch this room. I could care less about them finding our fun robotics research. I just don’t want someone else to know what I had to do down here.

I think I’ll spend some more time organizing the rest of the junk in here.

Future Notes:

Attackers likely withdrew to a central location; gas was likely at non-lethal levels by this time

The food supply, or “rations,” were sealed components for the food printer; I did not realize this until several days later. The label was not terribly helpful

Food printers used recycled waste products broken down into base compounds

The supply packs that fueled food printers aren’t good for food ; though technically edible, they often cannot be digested well by the human body, leaving a lot of unusable waste if eaten directly without processing via a printer