Embedded Files
“On my 21st birthday, I, Nora, remember proudly stating that I was finally an adult. One of my older friends said to me, ‘so what does it mean to be an adult?’ I didn’t have an answer to that question at the time and in fact found it somewhat odd. It’s only been 5 years since then but I think I finally have an answer to that question. Being an adult means understanding that nothing lasts forever and that you are lucky when you don’t have to see their ends. Your favorite show ends, your socks develop holes, your friends all move to different cities, the pet you raised dies, your grandparents die, or the planet you were born on becomes so inhospitable that humanity’s leadership orders every man, woman, and child to leave the planet or abandon any hope of a future for their descendents.
I don’t really understand why the leaders of the three meta-nations: Euroafrica, Australoasia, and the Americanas unilaterally agreed on such a severe course of action but I blame the two alien species we met amongst the stars, the Youmen and the Purians. The Purians, strong willed and independent, still thrive on their home planet Hyperion. Meanwhile the Youmen, caring, empathetic, and doting on humanity like a younger sibling, have lived through the extreme misfortune of losing their home planet to their unstable star. Already it is a ball of ash and glass, but according to some of their books, they are taking that loss in stride and collectively look forward to the day when they can all look at the night sky and watch their home star go supernova together. Regardless, the two alien species presented humanity with two possible futures, and I guess our leaders decided they wanted to be in the still-has-a-habitable-home-planet club at some point in the future.
It began with the corporations almost a century ago with the settling of the first colonies. Even though the decision hadn’t been made to abandon Earth yet, all of the major corporations jumped ship in search of new markets or whatever they wanted, most of them relocating to Altaria, the most developed of the colonies and now set to supplant Earth as the seat of humanity. They took many people with them, their ‘star employees’ they called them. Shortly after began the waves of exoduses as those with nothing appealed to their governments for transport to planets where they could find work.
Fast forward to now in the Canadian part of the Great Lakes Region of the Americanas, once the most populous region of the metanation. But now it was a gallery of abandoned buildings. As more people left, people started to move houses, not only to upgrade from an apartment to a mansion, but also to move closer to the shrinking center as everyone started to realize the danger that comes from living near many unattended buildings. Parts fall on you, you get lost, you get trapped, or you become convinced that the house across from you is inhabited and forget to do one of the million chores that are necessary to keep you alive. But that is irrelevant now, as the only people left in this region are myself, my father, and Soren’s family. My father is a climate scientist and so needs to stay on the planet until the last moment. ‘Our job is to turn out the lights as we leave,’ he jokingly says. The reason I am still here is to just be there in case something happens, simple tasks are a lot more dangerous if there is truly no one to hear you call for help.
As for why Soren and his family stay, that is more complicated. He, they, just don’t want to leave. Not just their land that they have had forever, or their way of life, but also their planet which is all anyone has ever known until very recently. I understand that but I try to tell him that they don’t really have an option. It is a rare point of friction in our long history together.”
Nora’s thoughts were interrupted by a jolt as her truck drove over a particularly deep pothole. She winced. She knew she should have been driving slower. A squeaking sound grew from somewhere in the back seat of the pickup. Cursing, Nora eased the truck to a stop to assess the damage. Even though she wanted to get to the Clemson homestead as soon in the day as possible, car maintenance took priority. She got out of the truck and reentered in the back row of seats. Nora took out a penlight and began probing all of the panels to find the one that was squeaking. For a while the only sounds to be heard were the wind blowing and the door open alert chiming endlessly. Eventually she found the offending panel. “D7” was written on it in permanent marker. Nora went back to the front, unhooked the mic on the shortwave radio, and pushed the talk button.
“Papa Silverton, this is Nora Silverton, from truck 2 do you copy?” She released the push to talk button and listened to the static for a few moments.
“Papa Silverton, this is Nora—”
“Nora Silverton, this is Papa, from weather station 1, I hear you. What’s up?”
“Hi Dad, one of the panels on the truck is squeaking. D7, do we have it at home or do I need to swing by one of the auto plants on the way back?”
“Dear, you need to slow down more.”
Nora let her hand fall and looked out the window, “I know, I know.” She’d gotten this talk before.
“We can’t let our tools fall into even the slightest disrepair. There are a limited number of replacements for something as complicated as the trucks and no one, as in no one on earth, can make them.”
“The part, Dad. D7, do we have it?” Squinting, she could make out the hazy outline of the nearest auto plant, she swore it looked shorter than usual.
“No,” he said, “we don’t have any parts past C.”
“Okay, thank you. Over.”
“No problem sweetie. Over and out”
Nora took out a clipboard and added the auto plant to her list of errands.
The Clemson Homestead was a magnificent property. Large fields of corn, wheat, beans, and potatoes surrounded it. They even had a herd of cows which they were able to keep healthy thanks to several special vials kept in the cryo-fridge. All of this was only possible thanks to the huge river that ran through their property which used to generate power for the entire area. Conversely, Nora and her dad had to rely on solar and wind as well as their massive battery bank that filled the basement. The Clemsons wasted no time gathering supplies from the vacated city, upgrading their house and keeping it pristine. Albeit the house had gotten more garish over the years. They never knew when to stop with that sort of stuff.
The house rose over the horizon as Nora rolled up the long gravel driveway before parking her truck in the loop. A child ran out of the open front door upon hearing Nora slam the truck door.
“Hi auntie Nora,” he said.
Nora crouched to be at eye level with the youngster. “Hello Timmy, how are you?”
“Um, I’m good,” he clasped his hands behind his back, “here let me plug your truck in for you.” He wrestled the power cord from the holster and shoved it into the socket on the truck causing it to chirp in acknowledgment. He looked at Nora, obviously very proud of what he did.
“Thank you Timmy, do you know where Soren is—”
“Oh yeah. Hey, Nora’s here!” Timmy shouted to the house.
About a dozen people spilled out of the front door, among them Thomas the patriarch, Julie his wife, some of their children, Thomas’s sister and some of her children, and of course Soren, hands still covered in dirt. They all gathered around Nora and talked to her as if they were the only two conversants.
“Nora, it’s so good to see you. I found this wonderful spot in the city the other day that I’ve been dying to show you.”
“Nora, I’m so glad you’re here, I have some pies I want you to take home, baked yesterday.”
“Nooorraaaa, will you play with us?”
“Nora! How’s Nick? It’s been a while since we’ve had you all over for dinner.”
“Nora, one of the harvesters has been on the fritz, could you take a look at it?”
“Nora, how are you doing on food? We have a lot of extra potatoes right now.”
“Nora, how have things been in your neck of the woods?”
“Nora, how’s your truck doing? We recently brought back a bunch of parts from an auto plant nearby.”
“Nora.”
“Nora.”
“Nora.”
“How are you?” It was Soren’s voice.
Nora turned around to see Soren’s head poking above the blond canopy.
“I am well,” said Nora, “it’s nice to be here again. What have you been up to?”
“Let me show you.” The crowd parted to make a path to Soren. He wiped his hands on his jeans before taking hers and leading her through the house. The rest followed her and peeled off one by one as they went back to what they were doing before the announcement. Soren continued to lead Nora through the house. They passed Grampa Clemson, still snoozing in front of the TV.
“Soren, what was all the commotion about?”
“Nora’s here to visit.”
“Good morning, Eustice,” said Nora.
“It’s good to see you.” Grampa Clemson went back to sleep.
Soren and Nora passed through the screen door into the backyard and its garden.
“Nooorraa.” Several children had followed them through the entire house. “Let’s play.”
“Of course,” said Soren to the kids, “but I’m showing something to her right now. Here, Nora will play with you later if you help us by pulling exactly 100 weeds. Deal?”
“Deal!” The children all bolted in different directions.
“They have a lot of energy,” observed Nora, “how long will it take them to pull 100 weeds?”
“Not that long,” said Soren, “but it will take them much longer to count them.”
Nora smiled, “that was expertly done.”
Soren scratched the back of his head and grinned.
“Anyways, what did you want to show me?” Nora took a step towards her boyfriend, “something related to gardening I’m guessing?”
“Right! I’ve made some progress with the roses.” He led her into one of the green houses as he continued, “so I was able to breed some white roses, your favorite, but they died before they could bloom.” He gestured to a few shriveled roses on a table. “Any idea why?”
Nora took a closer look at the desiccated flowers. “The pollen for these flowers, where did you get it from?”
“The same bush,” he said, “I’m guessing that’s bad?”
“Mhm.”
“How so?”
“Well the whole point of making flowers in the first place is to diversify the plant’s gene pool,” Nora walked around the small greenhouse as she continued, “for various reasons, all living things are much stronger when their parents are quite different from each other. And conversely, they are very sickly if their parents are closely related to each other,” she turned to face Soren,”that’s actually why we mate with people from different families.”
“Wait we what?” Soren’s face flushed rose red.
“We as in humans,” said Nora, “get your head out of the gutter. At least while the sun is still up.” She flicked Soren’s forehead and giggled as he reeled.
“Oh well,” he said, “I’ll get it right next year. Then I’ll make you that bouquet.”
Nora’s heart sank at the mention of the future. The last Arkship was set to leave at the start of winter. There would be no next year on Earth for her.
“You still planning on leaving?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Nora studied the dirt floor, “do you still plan to stay?”
“Um, yeah.”
She looked at Soren. “What gives you pause?” She was hoping to convince him to leave with her by winter, no she was planning on it even though rationally she knew she couldn’t guarantee it.
“Um well—“
“Nora! Where are you? We’re doing maintenance on the harvesters so now would be a great time for you to take a look at Fritzy… if you’re not busy with something else that is.”
“Go,” said Soren, “it’s not fair for me to keep you all to myself.”
“I wish it was,” she pecked him on the cheek before leaving the greenhouse. The two refrained from any displays of affection while in front of other family members.
Heavy music mixed with the clanging of metal in the maintenance shed. It still being the beginning of autumn, all of the doors were open to allow the wind to blow through. Tranquil fields of wheat shimmered all around the shed while white clouds could be seen floating overhead through the rusted holes in the corrugated roof. Ian and Terry were on shop duty when she arrived. Ian was a cousin of Soren while Terry was actually from the Pelletier family, another large family that used to own the acres west of the great river. However they let their house fall into disrepair after the most recent and largest Arkship departure several years ago and had to abandon it. The Clemson’s happened to have an extra building that was large enough to house the Pelletiers and allowed them to move in and combine their properties. Nora’s father pointed out to her that, in addition to increasing their property and natural assets, the move also bought the Clemsons one extra generation of genetic diversity.
“Go long,” called Ian to Terry, his arm was primed to throw a grease stained football.
“Any farther and I’ll be in the wheat,” complained Terry.
“Yeah, so? Okay right there, catch fool!”
Ian threw the football in a perfect spiral. At the same moment the wind picked up and blew in Ian and Nora’s faces. The ball made a cloud of dust several meters short of the wheat.
“Nice throw,” Terry carefully extracted his large frame from the wheat field.
“You saw that headwind,” retorted Ian.
“Am I at the right place?” asked Nora.
“Yeah this is the place,” said Ian, massaging the back of his neck, “we did our maintenance on all the other tractors but we can’t get harvester 4 to go into autonomous mode. I’m pretty sure it’s permanently broken but uncle Gus said to wait until you’ve had a look at it before scrapping it for parts. If you wanna just pronounce it dead, we can head back into the farmhouse where it’s cool until lunch.”
“No, I want to take a look at it.” Nora placed her straw hat on a bench and tied her long brown hair into a bun.
“Are you for real?” cried Ian, “all the maintenance teams have looked at it for the last four or five days. I’m sorry, you’re not going to fix it.”
“That’s never stopped me from trying,” said Nora, “where’s your on-board-diagnostics device?”
“Right here,” Terry pressed the rugged device into her hand. Nora climbed into the cab of the harvester and plugged the device into a port under the steering wheel. She knew they had already tried this, the massive manual of error codes on the dashboard was evidence enough of that. She cross checked the code from the device with the manual.
“AI Drive module not responding,” read Nora.
“Yup,” said Ian, arms crossed, “the most informative and least vague error code in the whole world. Now can we go?”
“I don’t think you understand what a loss a combine harvester would be.” Nora unplugged the OBD and wrapped the cable around it. She took out her notebook and pen and started to test all of the AI features with a depth first dive through the menus.
Ian sighed and leaned against the side of the harvester while she plugged away. “Did you see Soren’s ‘white’ roses?”
“I did, it was impressive that he was able to breed them so quickly.” Nora marked a menu tree as all clear and moved on to the next option.
“I guess you could call it that,” said Ian, “they’re not actually white roses, I’m pretty sure he just raised them so poorly that they became pale. Right? And then they died super quickly, you see?”
“An interesting idea,” said Nora. She wiped some dust off the touchscreen, “I was under the impression that they were actually white roses but died because they were inbred.”
“Even better! And he calls himself a gardener.”
“You know, you’re kind of getting on my nerves right now.” Nora finally found the problem, the CAN bus monitor was displaying messages from every module except from the front lidar.
“For what—”
Terry smacked Ian in the side.
Nora climbed out of the cabin, “I want to check under harvester, can I have a mechanic’s creeper?”
Ian kicked one across the shop floor, “nix on the console?”
“Sure,” Nora didn’t bother correcting him. She lay down on the creeper and slid under the harvester. She confined her search to the front of the harvester since she knew that the fault had to be between the central hub and the lidar unit. She ran her hand over the cover panel absentmindedly, a strange habit she’s had as long as she’s been fixing things and as long as she’s had a knack for knowing exactly what parts were broken before taking them apart.
“So how did you and Soren get to know each other?” asked Terry.
“You haven’t heard that story?” Nora slid out from under the harvester.
“I’ve heard it multiple times,” said Terry, “and they don’t agree with each other on everything.”
“Can I have an M6 wrench by the way?”
Ian handed her the wrench.
“Well I guess it started when we were 5.” Nora hammered the wrench with her palm to loosen the bolt. Dust fell from the joint. “My mom would go on foraging runs a lot and she and Soren’s mom usually worked together. Soon they were hanging out while out on runs and that is how we got introduced to each other.”
“Ah, so childhood friends,” surmised Ian.
“I mean who isn’t these days?” Nora removed another bolt, “anyways, we didn’t hang out that much then because we went to different schools but after the seventh exodus—”
“You mean Arkship departure?” clarified Ian.
“Yes,” Nora rolled her eyes, “after the seventh one, there weren’t enough teachers, or students really, to have multiple schools in the Northern Great Lakes area, so after elementary, we started going to the same school.” Nora loosened the last bolt and removed the cover panel releasing a cloud of dust.
“You okay down there?” called Ian.
Nora emerged from under the harvester coughing. “I totally forgot how much dust gets in these things.”
Terry handed her a glass.
“Thanks.” Nora sat up and took a swig of water. She snatched a pair of flush cutters before handing the glass back to Terry.
“When did you two start seeing each other?” he asked.
“In the middle of high school,” answered Nora. Over the many visits to the Clemson homestead, she had gotten used to the many questions that her father would describe as “prying” but it didn’t bother her. She lay down on the creeper and slid back under the harvester.
“So,” said Ian, “do you remember who asked who out?”
“Um, I did.” Nora wiggled the point of the flush cutter under the tightly wound cable tie.
Nora thought she heard Ian whisper, “told you so,” to Terry but she immediately forgot about it upon finding a chewed through cable.
“Just a quick question,” called Nora, “how is Mr. Whiskers doing? Still going outside?”
“No not as much,” said Terry, “he mostly just sleeps with Grampa Clemson all day.”
“Huh,” Nora ripped the chewed through cable out of the raceway. She measured it with her arm then placed it on the ground and slid out from the harvester.
“What now?” asked Terry.
“I need some RJ 65 cable.” She pulled the necessary length off of a dusty drum.
“What did Soren go to school for?” asked Ian.
“Medicine” Nora crimped a connector to one end of the cable. “He wanted to become a physician but had to make do with a nursing license after they closed the last university down after the 8th exodus.”
“What about you?” Terry stepped to the side as Nora dove onto the creeper and slid back under the harvester.
“Showoff,” said Ian.
“I was working on a literature, planetary engineering double major,” declared Nora. “Still am technically,” she added.
“What is planetary engineering even?” asked Terry.
“It’s a bunch of things.” Nora crimped the other end of the cable after confirming the length. “But they are all concerned with how to get an extraterrestrial colony up and running.”
“Wait, so you're going to homeschool yourself to a degree in that?” challenged Ian.
“No.” Nora plugged both ends of the cable into the harvester. “I’m going to finish it on Altaria where they have plenty of universities.” She slammed the cover in place and rapidly tightened the bolts.
“So you do plan on going?” Ian crouched to look under the harvester.
“Out of the way.” Nora shot herself from under the harvester.
Ian followed her as she hurried to the ladder. “Which means you plan on saying goodbye to poor Soren.”
“Hey, man cool it,” Terry reached for Ian’s shoulder.
“Unless you actually think you can convince him to leave.” Ian dodged Terry’s hand while he talked to Nora’s back as she climbed into the cab. “In which case, you don’t know the first thing about Soren: he will never leave. Nothing can make him go. This place is his everything and not even you—”
“Why do you do this?” Nora pounded her fist on the steering wheel. “How does saying all those things benefit you? Or anyone?”
Looking him in the eye, Nora started up the combine harvester. The worn threshers clattered and grinded before getting up to speed. She programmed a test route around the shed and hopped out of the cab.
“Move,” said Nora.
Ian and Terry picked up all of the loose tools in front of the harvester and scurried to the sides. The harvester honked twice before slowly driving out the shed.
“Wait, what?” Ian stared at the vacant spot in disbelief, “how did you?”
“Let me answer some questions.” Nora gathered the old cable.
“Mice chewed through one of the sensor cables triggering the AI Drive safety lockdown. Mr. Whiskers is too old to keep the mice in check so you need to let everyone know that the farm needs a new mouser. Also, my plan is to leave Earth but it’s not set in stone yet. And finally I think you’re being a prick because you’re bent out of shape because you know that if I were to leave, your odds of partnering up with one of the Pelletiers go down sharply. Thank you for the water Terry.” She shoved the dusty tangle of cables into Ian’s hands, turned, and left.
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