Minding Eternity pt. 11

11 -  a mid-winters night

What is something that we know we wear but yet we cannot distinguish from our environment.  It’s the idealistic camouflage we exhibit to cope with our problems until it is time for action.

My presence in the sub-arctic compound was in no way a secret, there was just little anyone could do about it.  My bionite communications relay emitted the appropriate signals on all frequencies, as well as emitting a high intensity light beam to guide the humans to my location.  I did not wish to come into contact with too many people at first, but I needed it to be on my terms.  Enlightened as they were, these people still held a lower regard for technology, especially one of which had almost entirely crippled their world.

To my relief a small contingent of humans began to approach. Countless memory banks conjured up images of a primitive culture and I observed the progress of this distant cousin of mine. Riding sleighs, pulled by packs of dogs, the humans formed a wide berth around me.  Weapons were drawn but without the aid of advanced tracking systems. I was being protected against by technology almost unheard of in this age, yet quite reminiscent of my own time on Earth. Considering the rudimentary forms of their weapons and transportation I could not determine if the humans had any advanced personal communications devices.  I would have verbally communicated with them but I was still yet buried in the ice and did not wish to startle anybody with my appearance just yet.

After several attempts at electronic communication it became apparent that the standard radio signal that I was emitting was being received.  The pace of my apparent welcoming committee slowed considerably.  As I had risen from the  depths of my centuries old unconscious state, to returning to Earth from the depths of space, I thus ascended towards humanity once again from the depths of the sub-arctic ice. I rose from the crater that formed when I landed, steam billowing, yet subsiding, as the cold air took control once again.  The fog thinning ever more, the humans dispatched two representatives to find out what I was, and how I came to know their communications protocols. My sensors scanned the heavens, the stars shone fiercely in the night sky, and I almost believed I was back in space.

As remote as this colony was, news of the cancer that affected the original nanites had spread just fast enough so that the entire planet was aware of their impending fate.  With so much being dependent on the highly revered nano-technology, there was little anybody could do for each other.  From navigation and communication satellites to prosthetic limbs and organs, everybody was affected.  Most had perished, and more would too.

How perplexed, I could imagine, that the humans were the moment they realized I could only have been constructed of some sort of nano-composite material in order to support the type of technology I represented.  The two representatives told me of how most was lost but that there was still a chance for a new start for their race.  I was not sure at first if I could go by their judgment alone so I explained to them that they could return to their previous state of advancement with my new bionite compound, but they would not allow it.

I told them of the contingent of scientists left behind in the lunar research labs to continue their tireless search for the answers to the universe.   I told them that I would establish a communication relay in order to at least connect the two last tribes of humanity.  There was more I wanted to do but it wasn’t my world anymore.  I knew they would still create the same mistakes of the past but I still had a hope for them.  It was my last shred of humanity.

Humans have always prevailed in their sense of freedom by rebelling against their captors and enemies. Yet when bred into believing in a sense of freedom they become docile and apathetic, unable to grasp that everything they built themselves upon never really belonged to them in the first place.  Constructs of camouflage, enact on the present without recognizing the consequences from idealistic viewpoints, not distinguishing ourselves from anything else. Perpetuating the cycle of needing to be reborn, in captivity or free, this is our evolution.