Stuck in the Eternal Traffic Jam

The year is 3034. I have been stuck in this traffic jam for three weeks now.

If you want to know how and why you find this letter, and myself, stuck in what I know to be an eternal traffic jam, by all means read on. But I warn you now that what you learn here can never be unlearnt.

My name is Faye, I am one of the 4.6 billion passengers stuck on the N31, Earth’s main road.

If you are reading this you will be one of the lucky few to have survived the planetary power-cut, or you might even be from generations below the survivors. Either way, my hopes are that whatever future you come from it is better than the hell we are struggling through right now.

You might laugh at this, you might be able to empathise with me, but the hard truth is that no one from my own generation has ever seen a real plant. I have read about them only in the books I have scavenged from derelict ruins of 21st century buildings and old antique shops that never made a profitable market to remain open for long. I was born in a world where people believe that the answer to all our problems is situated somewhere between technology and science. Who needs a book when the universe of knowledge can be summoned at the tip of your tongue?

“Hey HEIDI?”

(Home-Engineered Interactive Digital Intelligence… Series three)

“Good afternoon Faye, how may I be of assistance?”

“Who are Enigma?”

“This is what Wikipedia says about Enigma: Enigma was originally a covert operation created for discovering cures to terminal illnesses. Their research aims had always been to find a link between technology and curing illnesses. During the historical pandemic of the early twenty-twenties, Enigma discovered a link between most causes of illness and plants, trees and wild animals. This revolutionary discovery brought them to the foreground as their cure ended the pandemic three years earlier than theorized. This fame allowed Enigma to grow into a multimillion pound corporation whose power, supported by both the American and British governments, allowed for centuries worth of work in abolishing all nature and replacing it with what was described as “the age of man”. 507 years ago was when the last tree on Earth was cut down and the Era of technology began, all thanks to Enigma.”

Don’t think that for a moment everyone was happy with these new developments. A handful of people became the cornerstones to a revolution that started with peaceful protests. But in a world built on financial gain and power these heroic attempts were crushed and the rebellion was forced into hiding.

Allow me to paint you a brief picture. I have never known a world other than the one I was born into; nature is but legend. Now, the planet works like a giant singular working robotic organism. Once where the roots of the trees and plants connected the world as one now lie veins of electrical energy. That energy powers the lights, the screens, the technology, the ‘Lego-brick-glass’ buildings and drives our vehicles for us. They operate like pumping veins under the ground we walk on. Everything we own is, to some degree, charged with electrical power.

Don’t get me wrong, unlike many futuristic theories I’ve read about in the history archives our world is, ironically, pollution free thanks to it being completely built on electrical currents. But air is the only core element that remains. The Earth is long destroyed, the stars and moon are seen no more, and the sun becomes a suffused haze amongst the blue lights of the streets. Fire is all electrical and water comes from Enigma’s water supplying company ‘H2U!’ who advertise themselves as being the purest form of water for centuries.

Most people call it a progressive society, a world for mankind. Yet, amidst mankind’s marvel in their technological glory they failed to incorporate one huge flaw in their great plan. Technology, no matter it’s strength and power, is always, always vulnerable. It took Enigma centuries of hard labour to rid the Earth of Mother Nature’s lands and water, but technology can break within an instant by the smallest of malfunctions.

My name is Faye, I am one of the last members of Cordis Motus.

CM is a rebellion that dates back to the birth of Enigma, working day and night to find a way to bring an end to the world Enigma have destroyed, and finally, we have. It was a long wait. Waiting for Enigma’s final step in the birth of their so called ‘age of man’ to be completed. All it took was for one vital cord in the heart of Enigma’s system for the entire world to completely shut down.

You see, it’s really rather simple. You just cannot trust technology. One wire out of place and the world is down. Broken. No police to help, no hospitals functioning, world data lost, people trapped inside their homes unable to open their electrically shut doors, people locked inside their cars unable to drive or escape, those stuck outside their homes doomed to walk the desolate streets for eternity, no means of contact and no one can do anything to fix it, because there are no help systems available now within this technologically relied upon world.

“Hey HEIDI?”

Heidi is dead.

I am stuck inside my car, alongside 4.6 billion other people on the eight lanes of the N31. When I look up at the dark sky, uncontaminated by the techno-blue light I see for the first time the stars that have been hiding away for so long. They are far more beautiful than the pictures I see in the archives. If only I could have seen them long before.

I know what you’re thinking just now; we are the reason for the mass destruction of the human race. We are the ones who turned off the world. I was the one who turned off the world. Maybe. Maybe not. But what we have done is given Earth back to Mother Nature. Somewhere beneath the beatless heart of Enigma I know the Earth will find a way to breathe again. You are right to be angry with me, with us, what gives us the right to play the hand of God? If you can find an answer to this one question then you can prove that everything we have done was wrong: what gives anyone the right to chose one species over the life of a planet?

Now if you’ve managed to get this far into my letter, then you know the worst, but what I am about to tell you is so important that the future of the world will hang on the decision that you will have to make.

With this letter you should find a locket, the locket is shaped as a heart, the heart is the emblem for the Cordis Motus, and inside this locket is a key. This key was bestowed to me by the last head of the CM, to be kept safe and never used unless the final stage of our plan took place. This key opens a safe hidden in one of CM’s bases. The safe contains codes for both the fail-safe and the self-destruction for the heart of Enigma. I would have had to make the difficult decision once the final stage had taken place and I’d seen what had become of our plan. Destroy the system and potentially the human race along with it bringing the world to an apocalyptic journey or, use the fail-safe to bring the technological world to its simplest forms, just enough to save everyone – but – also just enough to potentially allow Enigma to reboot the system if nobody can stop them after what should be our planetary wake-up-call.

But I didn’t count on being stuck in this eternal traffic jam when it happened. So, if you have found my letter I pass the responsibility on to you. I hope that if you, or someone long before you has survived the planetary power-cut then that means that the world has progressed to a better place. However, provided the human race does survive, this choice I pass onto you is a choice you are still going to have to make if the world is to move forward and away from this new era of limbo that you are no doubt living in.

Never lose the locket! Keep it with you at all times!

I have left the co-ordinates to the hidden location of the safe throughout this letter as well as the six digit code for the padlock on the gate to the underground passage that will take you to the heart of Enigma. Only someone with the strength to make that difficult choice and the heart to choose the selfless act will be able to make the right decisions. I failed the world, everything was messed up so badly all because we put a little bit of trust in technology. Don’t you fail the world like I did.

Just remember at all costs: do not lose the locket! Keep it safe.

I know I don’t have a lot of time now. It’s three weeks since the power-cut started and the screamings have only just began to die away. My food supply is low, the stench of the undisposed waste is overwhelming, and no one is able to help.

I will give you one last bit of advice before I hand everything over to you.

Never trust technology, not with your life.

Best of luck,

Faye