One morning, the man said to his lover: “Let’s go on a walk.” His lover, who had barely woken up, replied: “Sure, why not?”
“Are you sure you wanna go with me?” He asked, hoping that his lover was serious.
“Yes, I’ve spent way too much time cooped up in here anyways. “
His lover was breathless at the prospect of exploration, and got up to get ready. They ate a light breakfast, dressed up, then left on the hike. Usually, the man would spend this time alone in his thoughts, but he found that he quite liked having his lover around to share them with.
“It’s still so beautiful,” he said, wistfully.
“Outside? Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
The landscape was starkly beautiful. The emerald coloured sky lent its green sheen to everything, enveloping the world in an oppressive, yet beautiful shade of green.
“They say it used to be worse,” he said, feeling chatty.
“They say it used to be better. If you ask the AI for pictures of the sky, it’s always blue and never green like this. I… prefer that.”
“You know you can’t believe everything the AI tells you. We don’t know the past, and they are unreliable at best. I bet this is it; this is the best humanity is ever going to get.”
“But you get your history from the AI. We all do. They speak about books and clouds and streams you can actually drink. And Birds! Do you actually think that birds aren’t real?”
“Chickens are real, and the AI hallucinates weird chickens sometimes.”
This argument was intractable. There was no way to know about the world that came before. All they could see were useless cars, the AI, and empty buildings.
The AI had taken a side; if you asked for things in certain ways they would spit out strange images – impossibly beautiful corruptions of the world they knew. The man had fallen in love with the bleak green landscape though, he felt drawn to its bleakness. He didn’t care for blue skies or clouds, no matter how pretty they looked. He loved his own emerald sky, and wanted to show it to his lover.
Passing one of the empty buildings that hadn’t collapsed or burnt down, they were scanned by a laser beam. These empty, unsafe towers were prone to collapsing at anytime. Some of them contained security AIs gone rogue, so most steered clear of them entirely. This building’s AI, judged them not to be a threat. A few mysterious burnt patches on the pavement suggested others may not have been so lucky.
“How do you account for these in your vision of a beautiful world then?”
“Symbols of our past errors. The AIs in the buildings fell into semantic decay, living in universes created entirely by their own hallucinations. When you get down to it, no one knows how the AIs work when you get down to it. Some people were overeager to integrate the AIs into everything. We know better now.”
“Or maybe we just no longer have the ability to control them.”
“Well these AIs are extremely powerful. Maybe they are a product of an earlier civilisation. Maybe we never could control them.”
They sidestepped the black spots on the ground. They could see a lone shoe a few centimetres away from one of them. The man couldn’t help but wince.
“I don’t buy this ‘I love the world, it’s perfect’ shtick you’ve got going.”
“I don’t know, I like to try to see the good around us, yunno? I think it’s the best we’ve ever got, but I can still think it sucks. Sometimes I just want to… Hey, thanks for coming with me.”
“I wanted to.”
His lover’s laughter rang over the intercom. He could fall in love with it a million times.
They turned left off the road and down the path to the stream. They would rest there for a bit then decide whether to go on or head back.
“The stream, um, looks nice,” said his lover, feeling bad about being a downer.
“I want to see if I can get across, could you keep watch for me?”
“Sure, but be careful, those rocks look slippery.”
“I know, I will. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
His lover left to keep watch, and he went down to the crossing. He jumped from rock to rock until he reached the other side of the stream.
“I made it!” His voice was exultant over the intercom.
“Nice, now could you head back?” His lover sounded concerned.
“No- wait, ouch!”
“What’s that?”
“I got bit.”
“Bit? You’re wearing a HazMat suit!”
“It’s an ant hill, my seal must be broken somewhere.”
“Great time to find out!”
“Fuck, it hurts, there’s a lot of ants.”
“Could you try crossing back?”
“Ok- ouch!“
He took the first jump, then slipped. His boot got stuck on something beneath the surface. A sharp pain lanced up his calf, causing him to jerk backwards suddenly. His foot left his boot and he fell backwards.
“Fuck!”
His thermal underwear felt wet. That was bad. He heard his lover calling for him over the radio.
“Babe, your boot!”
“I know, fuck, I got stuck.”
His lover started to sob frantically.
“The water, it’s toxic.”
“I love you. I’m so sorry.”
The man was doomed. He got up from the water and waded back to the beach. Each second he spent in the water only increased the dose of radiation – and god knows what else – he got from the water.
“I got you.” His lover had watched him make his way back up to the beach, holding back tears.
He felt a tear run down his face. He raised his visor to hers, and her face contorted in horror. His eyes had started bleeding. He fell limp in her arms. She tried calling his name – no response.
Inspiring