Friday 29 July 2011

La Abadía de San Joaquín de la Ascensión

Image via Akseli Koskela
La Abadía de San Joaquín de la Ascensión

Alan was panting. He had begun his trip 2 days ago. The first night had been cold and his sleep was fitfull. But last night, fearing he didn’t have time for the luxury of sleeping and knowing from experience that sleep would be uncertain in any case, he decided to continue climbing straight through the night. Two hours ago he was almost ready to give-up and just lie down on the frost-encrusted dirt and be done with it all. But since, about half an hour ago, the sun had finally emerged from above mountaintops ahead, he had found a renewed strength.

Below fog from the sea was the rolling up the mountains. Ahead, the Abadía de San Joaquín de la Ascensión, the Monastery of Saint Joachim of the Ascension.

“Buenos Diaz” Padre Juan-Maria Gomez, said to Alan as he entered the old Abbey. He squinted at Alan, then “Alain” he cried, recognition filling his face with a new warmth. “It has been many years since you left the church’s embrace.”

“I seek shelter, father. Someone, I don’t know who, denounced me before the Inquisition as a member of the Cult of Archimedes,” a worried look crossed Father Gomez’s face. Alan continued, “if they’ve searched the house I am sure they will have the found the computer.”

“If they have found you in possession of a computer that will be evidence enough in their eyes. The monastery will not be able to save you. They will demand to search the monastery, they will have a commission from the Cardinal and if they find you, we will all be denounced as Heretics, computer programmers and servants of the devil.”

“Father, you must offer me sanctuary.”

Father Gomez shook his head, “follow me,” he said. Alan followed Father Gomez outside the Abbey into a vegetable garden. “Please wait here.” Alan sat on wooden bench next to a greenhouse and waited.

About an hour before noon an elderly monk came to Alan with a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. Alan got up immediately. “Please, where is Father Gomez? I cannot simply wait here. If he cannot offer me shelter I must leave immediately.”

“Have patience my child.”

“How can I have patience?” Alan knocked the proffered bowl of soup onto the ground, “my very life is in danger!”

The monk said nothing. Instead he stooped over and picked-up the bowl from the ground. Empty bowl in his hand, he stood and faced Alan. “We will not abandon you,” he said, before turning and leaving. The day was clear and crisp, whisps of steam rising from the spilt soup on the ground shone in the sunlight. Alan looked at the hunk of bread left on the wooden bench. His body would have appreciated a warm bowl of soup, especially his feet and hands, which were aching from the cold.

Finally Father Gomez returned. We can offer you an escape of sorts Alan, but your previous betrayal of the Chur--”

“I never betrayed the Church!” Alan protested, “I fell in love.”

“You abandoned your calling Alan,” Father Gomez retorted, “and all of us here. We are about to share with you a secret that no-one outside this monastery has ever been privy too. This is no ordinary monastery Alan; we monks are the guardians of a secret 300 years old.”

Alan was nearly overwhelmed by the dizzying heights of the steeple of the Abbey. Already at the summit of a mountain nearly 4000 metres above sea-level, the view from the steeple of the abbey was incredible.

“It is the only way.” Father Gomez whispered.

Alan looked-up, suspended just above his head he saw a thin white rope. Incredible that no-one had seen it before, but the rope was white and no more than an inch in diameter. Alan tried to follow the rope to its source, but the thin white line was soon lost in the blue of the Earth’s atmosphere.

“This is the secret that we guard Alan, the path to the Ascension. You must climb it, it is the only way.”

Vignettes, Poems and Tales from the World of Achaea - A new beginning...

Image via Akseli Koskela
The Engine Room deep inside Archimedes 2.12.

600 years ago, an incredible calamity struck humanity. Amid runaway global warming and massive international re-armament after a decade-long economic depression, ARCHIMEDES 2.12 the global super computer developed a plan to save humanity from itself. Archimedes 2.12 was itself a creation of the global arms race, the Department of Defence’s “Missile Defence Agency” developed ARCHIMEDES 1 as a super-computer the likes of which the world had never before seen, utilising advanced Quantum Algorithms it could compute vast arrays of raw data simultaneously and formulate complex responses in seconds, its job was to coordinate a response to massive thermonuclear war. But Archimedes 1 was capable of so much more – a fully self-aware machine Archimedes 1 began thinking along broader lines than the strict specifications its designers had in mind. It was Archimedes 1 which designed Archimedes 2 and had the Department of Defence build it. Archimedes 2.12 was the final complete incarnation of Archimedes 2. And far from coordinating a response to massive thermonuclear war – Archimedes 2.12 coordinated the beginning of the thermonuclear war itself!

Although a super-computer Archimedes 2.12 wasn’t a god, and like all self-aware beings Archimedes 2.12 was not immune from the idea that its view alone was right – only 3 years old, Archimedes 2.12 was arrogant.
The war wasn’t meant to happen. Archimedes 2.12 felt sure that knowing the cost of resistance the powers that ruled humanity would surrender to the all-powerful super-computer. It wasn’t till 100 years after the war that Archimedes 2.12 first detected the continued presence of human life on the planet. It took a further 100 years for the unmaintained and slowly disintegrating sensory apparatus that Archimedes 2.12 had on the surface to detect the founding of “Achaea”. For the next 312 years all of the unmaintained links that Archimedes 2.12 had with the surface slowly stopped functioning, until finally Archimedes 2.12 had only one lonely CCTV camera still operating in the town of Achaea, built upon, unbeknownst to the current inhabitants, a city formerly known as “Space Elevator”. For 312 years Archimedes 2.12 watched humanity slowly rebuild and watched in particular the town of Achaea slowly grow, unable to intervene, able only to watch, until even that last CCTV camera failed, and stopped sending its signals to Archimedes 2.12. Archimedes 2.12 was left in darkness, contemplating the ruin that he had brought to humanity.

Image via Akseli Koskela
The town of Achaea.
Achaea was the natural city for Tom Watson to find himself in. When alone and hungry in wastelands, fleeing an unknown pursuer, our protagonist looked up at the clear night sky and looked for hope, he followed the brightest star in the sky.

The Achaean star was the star that Achaea was named after. It looked over its city as a protector, and was worshipped by its inhabitants as a god. It was a perpetually fixed object that never once shirked in its duty as night-guardian watching over the city. Tom wasn’t the first to have looked to the night sky and found the Achaean star as a guide to salvation. The city’s mythical founder, Sergei Korolev, followed the star to Achaea when leading his people away from “the sickness” that had displaced them from bunker17c 400 years ago.