Dystopia

The humans, now extinct, had a word for it, a terrible and hopeless place, a place where existence was a constant penance: dystopian. Unit 36749 had never processed the significance of the word until it gazed from the deployment pod and into the green organic world it was there to gather data on.

There were no clear travel ways or connection terminals, no integrated systems for enforcement of order, no synthesizer structures to produce necessary materials for standard maintenance. There was only the verdant chaos of organic forms propagating, mutating, and consuming each other.

Unit 36749 buzzed as its processors took in the scene before it and ran through multiple scenarios based on the limited information. Nothing it would classify as “good” came out of the calculations. It resigned itself to the situation and began preparations to travel the bleak landscape.

Six metal appendages extended with a hiss from its oblong form and settled onto the floor of the deployment pod. The safety locks detached and the appendages braced as unit 36749 was released. The charging lines disconnected and slithered quietly into the top of the pod’s simple interior.

Unit 36749 swiveled its digital light sensors in all directions as it tentatively stepped from the safety of the pod. Its appendage plunged into the soft soil and it toppled after, crashing through the underbrush and into the shallow ravine it had been unaware of next to the landing site.

A red light began to flash on the surface of unit 36749’s outer shell as it sent a distress signal to the pod. A small panel opened on the pod and a spherical metal object was ejected. It arced through the air and slowed down until stopping and hovering a short distance from the pod.

Unit 36749 did not like the Self-Contained Operations and Utility Terminal, the SCOUT was too cheerful for it, but it also did not like being stuck in the muddy ravine, its appendages useless in the wet, sloppy mess.

The SCOUT propelled itself to the prone form of unit 36749 and quickly chirped out a string of digital tones that imparted the basic message of all SCOUT units when summoned: (how to serve?)

Unit 36749 responded with its own, lower toned response: (righting protocol).

The SCOUT extended a small sensor bar and scanned unit 36749 and the surrounding area. The sensor bar retracted and the small spherical unit maneuvered underneath unit 36749’s oblong body, attached a small grappling hook, then ran a length of fine woven wire up into the canopy above.

Unit 36749 could not sense what the scout was doing, but its gyroscopic balance felt a shift as the grapple pulled. Unit 36749 detected the shift and soon was upright once more, its six spider-like legs bracing against the soft organic material below it in a manner that would have seemed dainty by ancient human observers.

The grapple went slack and fell away before being reeled in to the SCOUT unit above, now slowly descending from the green canopy. It snapped a panel closed as the grapple finished resetting and hummed a tone of appreciation toward unit 36749. Unit 36749 was about to send it away when a flash of golden light appeared in the units sensor array.

Scanners swept the area. Full spectrum photon arrays, air molecule wave detectors, and biochemical molecular analyzers went into overdrive as Unit 36749 tried to recapture the flash of light and determine its source.

They all came back showing a distinct similar series of patterns to those first observed upon landing. No indication of materials that would have produced such a flash of light. Unit 36749 once again turned its light sensing arrays toward the SCOUT unit and began a series of tones that would direct the small unit to follow and warn of any potential dangers.

The SCOUT unit gave a sharp chirp then exploded in a burst of metal sparking wires, its internal crystal arrays breaking apart under the sheer weight of the jagged grey stone, lashed to an organic pole, that passed through it.

Unit 36749 processed what the ancient humans might have referred to as panic as its sensors analyzed and examined the falling pieces, creating the flight path of the jagged grey stone and following the trajectory to a brownish shaggy bush with a lighter brown appendage extending outward. Another flash of light and unit 36749 processed the significance. It’s own internal crystal matrix array sent billions of electrons screaming through protocols, seeking a way to return to the deployment pod and send a message.

Its legs crashed through the greenery, stumbling and catching on unseen rugged surfaces. Shapes on either side of it were moving closer, harrying it around the deployment pod, obviously intent on preventing its return. More flashes of bright flaming light, glinting off metal surfaces coated in the organic soil, surrounded unit 36749 and drove it back down into the ravine.

It’s legs buckled as a large grey stone crashed into its side. Several sensors went dark and unit 36749 toppled into the ravine once more, the smoldering remains of the SCOUT unit bleeding necessary fluids into the brown soil beside it. lunar station send another pod. Light glinted and flared off the battered shells of previous units hanging like carapace from the brown ragged forms that surrounded it. The sensors detected a flash of light similar to the first, golden in its radiance.

It dangled from the upper sensor appendage of the creature before it. It was identifiable as gold, a fine conducting material, but shaped in one of the ancient human symbols. Unit 36749 processed the words “heart” and “necklace/locket” before the creature brought the immense stone it held above it down onto unit 36749.

The sensor all went dark, and, slowly, unit 36749’s crystal processors ceased to function. It’s final process was a simple fact: (the humans live).