Rhea’s End
By Adam Howell
Copyright 2013 by Adam Howell
Acknowledgements
Thank you Lootheen https://www.furaffinity.net/user/weiro/ for drawing the terrific front cover for me, and thank you to my family for all their help and support.
Part 1: Built As Angels
Chapter 1
The planet Rhea was abandoned by civilisation centuries ago. They left only the immortals behind. Remnants of ancestors which ‘morality’ prevented from being turned off. Crispy thin creatures, completing their day to day activities, oblivious to the world, as they were hoisted along by their internal enhancements.
Their minds switched off long ago, they shudder about, limbs pulled and twisted from within, as they run through their scheduled tasks. Instructions to carry out day to day activities all offloaded onto autopilot many lifetimes ago. Stale flesh, muscles withered away to nothing, thin skin, bright yellow, as if discoloured over time - all kept alive for the sake of existence.
Our ship was forced to land after an accident. A fault in the new spatial location system, acquired at great expense by our preacher. The preacher had more than likely pocketed half the cash and spent what was left on a defective piece of scrap, but I wasn’t going to cause an argument - not when stranded. I could make him compensate me when we were successfully back at Mapheus.
We landed in Rhea’s old capital, Cetus Park. The buildings were well maintained, the lights were on, glowing from out of the biodomes. It seemed as fresh as any modern city. But the shriveled bodies, lurching around from building to building - they were the only sign something was wrong.
I’ve travelled the nineteen planets, experienced the harshness of the most extreme habitations, I’ve seen people in many shapes and sizes. Humanity has molded itself to differing environments.
The people of Rhea formed a nightmare. A warning of how we must value our minds.
The bodies walked their preset patterns along the roads; paths they would have travelled for centuries. A computer controlled race of human remains - the immortals - their minds no longer touched by the reality of their situation.
There were three of us. It was a controlled landing in a favourable atmosphere. There was me, Raul Hampher. I held the honorary title of captain - captain of a ship which would never fly again.
Then there was Florina Jesp, an artist and passenger. She made balloons out of fruit. It was meant to speak of our physical transcendence. She should have taken the opportunity, on Rhea, to make a balloon out of an immortal. That would be a message I’d understand.
Her sight recognised eight primary colours, none of which were visible to me. This was a modification granted to her by her parents, who had decided, before she was born, that she’d make a talented artist. She had dark charcoal grey skin and light grey hair, as was the norm on Ruk.
Then there was Hayden South, our preacher. He displayed an impressive knowledge, especially of the value of things on the black market. There could be no theft or scavenging here on Rhea. The immortal’s autopilots fulfilled every role of society, even the police - pointless as it would normally be.
If you were to get arrested you might end up stuck here. There were many stories about Rhea. People landing and never being heard of again. Hayden would have to control himself.
He had rough skin with short bristly hair. I’d seen similar skin adaptations many times before. It gave away his desert planet origins. All the humans, on all the worlds, have taken the opportunity to modified themselves. Rhea - although their method was synthetic rather than genetic - was one of the first worlds to really make dramatic human modifications. They walked into their fate blindly, bit by bit.
It’s a harsh world on which to live - heavy gravity and hot humid weather. I was the only one of us who didn’t seem to mind the conditions. The other two were driven on by excitement, but I could see the strain put on their bodies.
At first the people here - if you can call them people - were useful. They attempted to repair our ship for us, though our technology would be centuries beyond theirs and they’d have no spare parts. We’d launched a transmission pod before we hit the atmosphere. A rescue would be less than a week away. We just had to knuckle down and wait.
The immortals gave us shelter and a supply of freshly farmed food. Their voices were sloppy. Their enhancements struggled to push the bodies into the shapes needed to make sound. Their lips would be shoved to the side and pried apart by synthetic muscles. Unnatural expressions would be stretched across their glazed faces.
They spoke without personality; deadened eyes gazing into space. They listed starting times for dinner and instructed us about the activities available in town, the countless tourist destinations that would have gone centuries without a single guest.
They put us up in a hotel, each with separate rooms. They'd already helped us transport our possessions from the ship and they said that they’d send the rescue party to us, when they arrived.
Florina told me that she thought the city was beautiful and I agreed. Several centuries of ancient architecture layered upon each other. Giant luminous biodomes and pillars reaching down from the sky. Most of the planet was falling apart, but this city’s population - though now merely automatons - was sufficient to maintain everything. A time capsule preserving a planet in a different era. Squint hard enough and its people come alive.
We weren’t the first to visit Rhea. There had been other brief visits. It’s always described as such a depressing place, now. Once there must have been so much life.
Internal enhancements were this planet’s way of coping with the high gravity. A synthetic webbing within the host’s body, designed to complement and aid every muscle. At first it was just given to the elderly, the people who felt the strain the most, it was meant as an invisible aid. Giving them the strength needed to live a productive life. Over time, it ended up spreading throughout all corners of society.
The problems really occurred when autopilot took over. People gained the ability to hand over control of their bodies whilst engaging in the more tedious tasks. It was all managed by the Core. A centralised intelligence that would regulate all the mundane tasks in life. It would move your body around as you relaxed and let life drift by.
It could do things such as: tidying your house, travel from a to b, do some work for the Core. You could even hold short conversations with people: take messages, greet people, explain that the host wasn’t available right now.
That’s the default response if you ever tried to talk to a random immortal. They’d slurp their words to you, as they tried to introduce themselves by name, and explain that they aren't available right now.
Of course they weren’t available, their brains, along with most of their natural muscle, had long since shriveled away. The synthetic webbing wore their human host like an old rag.
It was amazing really, that this echo of society had managed to keep going - playing out its roles, day after day. But here it was, right in front of us. Rhea, planet of the damned.
Chapter 2
We met up in the hotel foyer. An immortal was sat along the side, playing an out of tune piano - it didn’t care how it sounded.
The others had their hearts set on exploring this lost city. A part of me wanted to as well, but I was wary. This planet was the stuff of horror stories. Visitors being arrested by the police for going where they're not meant to, and disappearing. Lost within a largely non-functional justice system.
I reminded the others to be careful and they seemed to take it in. The risks seemed well understood.
We thought we’d start off by heading to the largest of the visible biodomes which towered above the hotel’s rooftop. It would be just around our block
of buildings - if we could find the right road. Florina was filming everything as we walked.
We passed a church. A religious building with a crowd of immortals stood motionless outside.
“People for you to preach to,” Florina said, scoffing at Hayden.
He look uncomfortably into the camera.
“I think these people are well past saving,” he said.
Immortals, with beads in their hands, would walk up to the entrance, wait around for a few minutes, then go on their way. The leftovers of a religious practice they’d long stopped understanding.
Further up, a road ran around the side. This would be the way. The colour of the biodome ahead seemed to match that of the sky - pale yellow. Rhea was one of the earliest of the colonies and these would have been colossal feats of ancient architecture, at the time.
“Do you think we can get inside?” asked Florina, as we got closer.
I said, “I don’t know, maybe. Lets be careful.”
The biodome had a large courtyard with a luminous fountain. The type you might find on Earth. Only here the water splashed down hard under Rhea’s gravity.
Hayden ran his hand through the pond at the base.
“Careful,” I said, “We have no idea what’s allowed.”
“Cautious, aren’t you,” he said, smiling, but he removed his hand and dried it on his shirt.
“Probably best we don’t walk on the grass, as well,” said Florina, pointing at the neatly cut lawn ahead of us.
I nodded.
A immortal walked down the path and passed us. Its mouth gaped open and its sunken eyes pulled back down to one side. It was heading to the biodome and we followed behind.
Florina asked aloud, “What could possibly be going on in their minds?”
“Pray you never find out,” said Hayden.
I answered, “Nothing - nothing is going on in their minds.”
It led us up to the entrance and the door slid open.
The doors would have been triggered by electronic commands. Without the relevant implants we were dependent on the immortals to open doors. We followed him in.
There were other immortals inside. It was a spacious dome with sculpted plant life around a scattering of small buildings
“A park,” Florina said as she spun around to take in the sight.
There were immortals sat around on benches watching other immortals playing hopscotch on the grass.
The biodome’s doors slid shut behind us.
Hayden observed, “We could end up getting trapped here. If we need them to open all the doors.”
“Yes,” I said, “and we could all end up getting arrested if we’re forced to break out.”
I began to back up towards the door, thinking the conversation showed a general agreement that we should leave, but the other two continued onwards. I jogged up to them hiding my unease.
Florina’s focus was on her filming. The immortals staggered about oblivious to her fascination. A large marble statue dominated the centre of the dome. It was of a pretty young women. Looking down at the inscription, carved into the base, it read, ‘Gloria’.
Immortals came dressed in a multitude of different clothing styles and colours. The clothes looked new and clean - always freshly manufactured, but never the right size for their shriveled bodies.
It must all be made somewhere - all automated and repaired within the the city’s colossal structures.
We watched them walk their dogs. Yes, they had pets, normal pets. They must be breeding them and automatically assigning them to new owners. The owners must have then added pet caring duties to their schedule. It was all very clever. The way these human puppets were made to play with and stroke the animals, as if they cared for them. The animal wouldn’t have any comprehension that the human felt nothing. In a way it was so sad.
We spent an hour exploring that biodome alone. This city was vast. We slipped back outside, through the doors, walking close behind an immortal who carried a bag of shopping. She’d been buying some new clothes, by the look of it.
Back in the fresh air, I asked, “Where to, now?”
“Perhaps we could find a place where we could get a coffee?” said Hayden.
“No,” I said, “We’ve no money. We’ll have to go back to the hotel if we want to eat.”
“That’s boring,” Florina moaned.
“Well,” I said, “Perhaps we can explore a bit more before we go back.”
There seemed to be a quiet agreement with that statement, though I now regret making it.
Our next discovery was a disturbing one. Of all the buildings in all the streets, something invisible drew Florina on to a small opaque brown glass building. We stood outside for a moment and Hayden asked her what she was looking at.
“There’s a lot of warmth here,” she said.
I told her, “I don’t feel it.”
Hayden, always looking for a moment to remind us of his faith, asked, “Would that be a spiritual warmth, you’re feeling?”
Not answering she looked down the road. An immortal was walking up. Ugly as them all. Her face fallen in on itself through lack of use.
She walked into the building. The door sliding open for her.
“We don’t know when she’ll come out. We might get stuck,” I said warily. I could see the longing to explore in Florina’s eyes. She bit her lip. I thought in that moment she was about to march in, but she stopped.
The immortal was coming back outside and it was such a disturbing sight. I didn’t know what to feel. We just stood there, all stunned into silence. As she left, she held, firmly in her hand, the wrist of a worried looking girl. She couldn’t have been more than eleven. Normal and healthy, she showed no sign of being modified. She looked at us fascinated as the immortal dragged her away. Had she ever even met a normal person before?
“Dear, God,” whispered Hayden, “They’re breeding!”
Chapter 3
Florina was the first to recover her senses. She realised she’d stopped filming. Lifting the camera back up, she called out, “Come on, we have to follow them.”
Next thing we knew, we were jogging along the blue rubbery pavement, catching up with the the girl and her captor.
“Wait,” Florina called out.
The immortal stopped and abruptly turned, yanking the little girls wrist hard. The girl flinched in pain. She was clearly use to being handled roughly.
Florina leant down by the girl, ”What’s your name?”
The immortal slurped an answer, “I am Sarah Hope, I’m sorry, I’m not available right now.”
The girl darted her eyes over us all. “You’re tall people. They take you away when you’re tall.”
“Take you where?” I asked.
She looked around.
I asked, “Are there others like you. Other children?”
After a pause she nodded.
“Where are they?”
“She’s taking me to them. You can follow if you like. I’m being punished because I ran off. But they only shout at you if you’re naughty. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Are there older children?” Florina asked.
“Yes, some. You’ll see.”
The immortal started walking again and we followed.
We walked for about five minutes and then came to an opened gate leading to a courtyard surrounded by a building and wall. A wall ran around one side and there was a sign, ‘Authorised Personnel Only’. The immortal marched the girl through the gate and up to the front door. We all hung back at the gate, intimidated by the sign.
As the front door opened we caught a glimpse of other children. It was only a flash but I swear I saw them playing with toys.
“I need to get a closer look,” said Florina, clutching her camera.
“Wait, it says authorised personnel only. You’ve heard the stories about the over zealous immortal police.”
“Yes, but they have children here.”
“You’v
e filmed them. We can transmit the evidence when we get off this planet. We can’t do anything else.”
“I’ve not filmed them. We only got a glimpse them. I need to see how many. There could be hundreds.”
She ran off around the side of the grounds and we ran after her. She dragged herself up on top of a wall.
“Come down,” I called in a hushed and anxious voice.
“I’ll just try and get a shot from through the window.”
She was so much braver, or foolhardy, than me.
Then from on top of the wall I heard her scream. At first I thought it was something she’d seen, but then I realised she was being pulled from the wall.
I ran back round to the gate to get a better look. I saw an immortal dragging her into the courtyard. It held her wrist and pulled her along the floor. She screamed hysterically, panicking. The immortal dragged her through the gate and stopped, holding her by the side of the road.
“Why are you holding her?” I asked.
The immortal turned to me and said, “She has trespassed on a restricted area. The police have been notified and are on their way.”
“She didn’t, you dragged her into a restricted area.” I said, arguing the facts.
The immortal didn’t react.
Florina was screaming, “I never did anything. Get off”
Hayden helped lift her to her feet.
“What will the police do with her?” I asked. It was no use.
A few moments later a transport rolled up alongside the road and a police officer got out. As cold and emotionless as any machines, the immortals swapped possession of Florina. The officer took her to into the transport and they drove away. The immortal stayed at the gate looking in my direction.
The camera. Florina had dropped it just within the gate. Could I reach in and get it?
I needed to show what was going on here. That’s not true, maybe I didn’t, but the video would have been explosive. The council would have to react. Our words could be ignored, but to see the children and how they were treated.
I asked the immortal if she could pass me my camera. She didn’t react. Her head was permanently tilted to one side. Were her internal enhancements wonky?