Artifacts of the Apocolypse

Gryphonboy

Hello fellow writers,

I'd like to share a chapter from my WIP sci-fi novel and get some feedback from you. The novel is set in the very distant future (twenty five thousand years or so) and this chapter is basically giving a little bit of background detail of the events that led to the end of the world.

Basically the survivors have uncovered this audio recording of the final hours of the life of a woman in a seed vault in Norway.

Anyhoo, I hope you like it and would appreciate thoughts/comments.

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[Vault Log 16022122 - Audio recording single channel 44khz 16bit]

[Text Transcript of Audio log decoded from electronic handheld device.]

[Subject identified as Agnes Helminen PhD. - Duty Spermologist.]

[Location : Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Spitsbergen, Norway]

[Time stamp, 14:45 - 16.02.2122]

Mika still hasn't returned from his trip to Longyearbyen to get our lunch. I'm starting to get a little hungry. If he wasn't so damned cute I'd probably be mad.

Just finished cataloging the new deposit from the South African Development Community delegation. Nordgen better bump me up to a higher pay grade for all the overtime I'm doing.

[Time stamp, 16:20 - 16.02.2122]

I think something serious has happened. There was a major earthquake about an hour ago. I've never experienced anything quite like it. The vault is still shaking from aftershocks...[loud cracking sound and some scrabbling noises]...sorry, that was a big one, just dropped my... ah, my phone.

It looks like grid power to the vault has been lost. The generators kicked in after the first shock. They're still running now so I'm assuming mains power hasn't come back online. The seed storage refrigeration systems have gone offline. It shouldn't be a problem, the permafrost surrounding the vault should keep the temperature sub-zero. All comm systems appear to have been disabled. It's weird, all the systems are functioning but I just can't get an outside connection. Nordgen control is offline and I can't get a signal on my phone either.

To be honest... I'm, ah, I'm more worried about my situation. I've checked and it looks like the quake has sealed me in to the vault. Both the main entrance and the escape hatch have been blocked, I'm guessing by rock fall. The doors aren't opening so I can't be sure.

Mika never came back. I hope he's ok. I hope he lets the folks at Nordgen know I'm still in here.

There's enough fuel in the generators for a day or two of power at best. Once the power goes the air circulation and heating systems will shut down and... ah, well... I'll be ****ed.

[Time Stamp, 09.59 - 17.02.2122]

Still no sign of mains power coming back online. I've spent some time tinkering on the main workstation and I've managed to get myself logged in with administrator privileges. The Nordgen network is still down but I managed to get connected to the open web. Not much is online and the connection is intermittent at best but I've managed to connect to a site in Sweden called the pirate bay. An admin has managed to somehow keep a server online and has been hosting a forum and chat-room.

Users on the site are saying all sorts of strange things about what is going on. A user in the U.S. [United States of America] MidKnightSon, claims that there has been a nuclear attack by the Chinese [The People's Republic of China]. He says he is a silver miner who was working Greens Creek Mine in Alaska and was underground when the bombs hit. He and some of his colleagues went above ground to take a look and apparently the whole area is a wasteland. He said it was like 'hell on earth'. They went back into the mine and now appear to be suffering from radiation exposure. He thinks that they will survive as they weren't exposed for very long but they are all vomiting and slightly feverish.

I'm not sure how he has a connection to the web and I'm also not sure how he knows that it was the Chinese. He doesn't mention seeing anything specific that would indicate that this was the case. It's also contradicted by another user from Ulan Bator [Capital city of Mongolia].

This user SunWu, claims to be working for the Chinese embassy. He was doing sysadmin maintenance on their data-centre which is in a bunker below the embassy building. He had a direct connection to the Chinese Ministry of National Defense network in Taipei [Capital City of the Republic of China] and managed to grab an unsecured communication. He attached a screenshot of the message and a translation. Unfortunately he only translated the first line.

[image attachment]

身份不明的飞船 - unidentified spaceship?
可能起源北約未經證實
車站的關鍵
物質拋射
熱區
赤道

[image attachment]

He claims that the connection was lost minutes after that message came through. He also says that twenty minutes after that, the quake hit. As far as he knows, China and Mongolia have been completely wiped off the map. I tried asking him to translate the rest of the message but he hasn't come back online for a few hours now. I guess he was running on backup power like me and ran out of fuel. Speaking of which, I've got about four hours of juice left which... I guess... well, ah, I guess that means this is my epitaph.

**** you aliens!

[Time Stamp, 13.30 - 17.02.2122]

The generators have stopped. It's so weird, I had grown so used to the sound that I wasn't prepared for how quiet it would be in here. The lights are out too. It's so dark now. The only light I have is my phone's screen and the battery is in the red.

I hope someone comes to rescue me soon, I don't think I'm going to have air for much longer.

I'm scared.

I can't die in this ****ing place! I wasn't even supposed to be here...

[long period of silence punctuated by heavy breathing and crying]

...mom, dad, if you're still alive, I love you guys. I love you so m...

[recording ends]

alfa beta

i think this is well written gryphonboy - the sentences flow well - nice pace too.

watch out for repetition though - for example, look at the amount of times the word 'managed' is used in first para of time stamp 9.59.

Gryphonboy

Good catch, I've read the damn thing so many times and obvious **** like that eludes me. Grrr.

7daze

Hi, long time lurker, first time contributor. Thought I'd weigh in on this one.

I really like it. The pace and tension are good. There were a few things that drew me out of the story though:

The 44khz, 16bit audio - I wonder if this will still be the standard in 111 years time?

I found myself asking, why would Agnes feel the need to record the fact that she was hungry and Mika was cute? Perhaps the content of the first audio log should be swapped around: Put the technical stuff first (a legitimate reason to start an audio recording for a seed bank employee) and the lighter, personal stuff later in the recording, almost like an off mic ramble.

The '**** you aliens!' line jumped out at me. I'm guessing Agnes assumed some alien connection to the quake based on the 'unidentified spaceship' but, being 2122, I assumed spaceships would be fairly common. Look at Space X and Virgin Galactic for example. If there is an alien connection, maybe a little more evidence is needed.

That's it. As I said I enjoyed it and would be keen to read more.

Gryphonboy

Thank you 7daze. That is some really good feedback!

re. the bitrate for the audio. You make a very valid point. My first draft of this piece had the date as 2017, but I've just recently changed it to 2122. That's a good example of a change having weird knock on implications. I suppose it's probably better to drop that piece of info rather than have it be something that every geek reading the story will question.

re. the the content of the log. This is actually her personal log/diary rather than anything she is doing for the company. Having said that, I think you're right about putting the work related stuff first. It makes more sense for her to start with that.

The "feck you aliens" bit does seem to be a little bit unusual now that you mention it. Space travel is definitely a common thing in the world I'm creating. I think maybe I should add an extra bit where she goes through the process of elimination. If it's not us (the west) or them (the east) then maybe it's aliens?

Anyway, thank you very much for the thoughtful reply. It's very helpful.