| Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1 |
August 26, 2526. The cataclysm has escalated. The ring fault surrounding the
southern pole has torn open. Rivers of lava flow through the chasms,
threatening to incinerate any who would fall to their deaths below. People
are cut off from each other. Some successfully made it across before the
mountains pulled away from each other, or already lived in the safe zone.
Others could not make it in time. Soon, the land beneath their feet will
turn to soup, or some other hazard will end their lives. Something must be
done to bring these people back together. A bridge must be built. No one has
ever constructed anything like this before, and certainly not at scale, but
they are not wholly unprepared. The southern polar region is more
mountainous than the north. That is the primary reason why it has fewer
domes at this point, and why it is less populated. It is more difficult to
travel between domes, and traditional forms of engineering are both tedious
and slow. That is why they have been experimenting with new forms of
construction, including the fast-woven graphene lattice.
Instead of laying blocks of material on one end, and slowly adding farther
and farther towards the other side, drones fly clear across the gap. Fewer
refugees are seeking shelter in the southern pole. An entire quarter of the
Terminator Line is even more mountainous than the cap. And one advantage
they have compared to the north is a newly built dome that is recently
sealed, presently uninhabited, and fully available for temporary housing. So
instead of dealing with an untenable onslaught of people, the leadership was
able to dedicate resources to researching the threats. They realized that
the ground was about to break, and began to plan for that as an eventuality.
They still have to hurry, but this will work, as long as they’re careful.
They chose a spot where the two edges of the chasm are particularly close
together. It’s not quite in the center of the Terminator Line, but they have
sent volunteers in both directions in parallel to the chasm, on the
dangerous side, to direct refugees to the right spot to cross. They have
been gathering in an emergency pressurized inflatable habitat, but it’s
quickly reaching capacity, so it’s time to make this happen. Timing is
everything.
The southern pole is a little different than the rest of the planet. It’s
run by an advisory-administrative government. There are two delegator
boards, which come to decisions independently, and compare notes before
making a joint decision, which they then delegate to the administrators.
Each delegation includes a skeptic. It’s unfair to call them uneducated, but
they are definitely meant to be out-of-the-box thinkers who are meant to
question everything that they’re told. If you say left, they say right. If
you say right, they say wrong. If you say wrong, they say wrung. Their job
is to fight you, even when you start agreeing with them. It’s the devil’s
advocate for the secular world. That’s what Thadeus Hogan’s role is, and he
was here to make sure that what they were doing made sense. He’s done that,
so now he’s mostly just here to watch.
Thadeus stands on the edge of the cliff. His consciousness is backed-up,
both on the ground, and in orbit, but he’s tethered to a safety anchor in
case he slips over the edge, and doesn’t want to waste time in a respawn
pod.
“Ready!” the ordnance foreman cries from the perch. “Ready!” he repeats.
“Fire!”
The artillery engineers activate the railguns. The cryogenic warheads soar
through the air, arch over the chasm, and then plummet into the depths.
“Can I get closer?” Thadeus asks. When his guide nods, he leans over. The
bombs crash into the toxic lava below. He can’t actually see it, but he sees
the change. The thermal updrafts change from a sickly reddish color to gray.
It just looks like steam.
“Why did we do that again?”
“We just froze the topmost layer of that lava,” his guide explains again.
She knows he’s like this. Asking the same question multiple times is his
duty, because if your answer changes, how can you be confident in it? “The
fumes were chaotic and unpredictable, and just too much for the drones to
handle. They were designed to fly in the Proxima Doma’s thin atmosphere, but
to make that work, they’re slow. By switching from fumes to vapor, they fly
through much more manageable paths. They surf the air, and safely find
purchase on the other side.”
As the ordnance foreman sits back down, the head drone operator stands to
take his place. “Prepare the drones!” she orders. “You have two minutes!”
This is just in case something has gone wrong. They are a well-oiled
machine, and the drones have been ready for hours. They had to wait to begin
constructing the bridge to make sure the ground was stable enough. There is
no point in building a bridge if the gap is going to widen another kilometer
by the time everyone manages to cross it. He’s keeping one eye on his
launchers, and the other on the barometric technician.
The technician is tracking the shifting composition of the air, and waiting
for that perfect moment. He lifts his hand in the air. The head drone
operator takes one last look at the launchers, but then focuses right on the
tech. “Hold! Hold!” No reason he can’t have a little fun with it. This is a
momentous occasion. Finally, he slams his hand down.
“Launch!” the head drone operator orders.
The drones fire into the unprecedentedly thick atmosphere. Thadeus loses
direct eyesight of them too, but watches their progress through augmented
reality. And he can still see the graphene scaffolding that the drones are
pulling, spindling out like a silkworm’s silk. The drones are flying in
pretty close tandem, but the pressure gradient isn’t perfectly smooth, so
some lose attitude, and have to regain formation. Once they’re on the other
side, they drop anchor, slamming hard into the ground, and digging in.
Volunteers on the other side drive over in their rovers, and lower their
suspension into hunker mode to provide extra support. It’s not
sophisticated, but every kilogram helps.
“Launch the weavers!” the head drone operator orders now. The smaller drones
fly along the skeleton lines. They distribute themselves along them, and
begin wrapping the webbing around, over the gaps between them, and around
each other’s lines. Over and under, over and under. They build tensile
strength in perfect synchrony, and what results looks like a fully stable,
strong, and lifesaving bridge.
The convoy master is on the perch now, having ordered the test rovers to the
end of the bridge. The drones have finished their jobs, and it’s time to
make sure the bridge will hold, and not kill anyone who tries to drive on
it. The foreman nods her head, all the drones are back. The convoy master
simply points to the rovers, and doesn’t say a word. The operators let them
go, at high speed for the ultimate stress test. They make it to the other
side. They go a hundred kilometers an hour, and make it there in two
minutes.
“Send the first wave!”
