Atonement (Type I Short Story)

The darkness was enhanced by the New Moon’s lack of reflected sunlight. This would have been a perfect night to witness a “natural” meteor shower if one were to occur, but instead, the streaks in the night sky belonged to the countless debris and spacecraft entering the atmosphere. Space is vast, but it’s even getting crowded up there as millions of satellites, spacecraft, and space stations constantly zoom around the Earth and its celestial companion.

But it’s still not as crowded as down here, where the majority of the 14 billion and counting souls are stacked one on top of each other in sprawling megacities. The cities themselves densely packed with arcologies, kilometer tall city-hives filled with tens of thousands of people living in self-sufficient communities. They are fortresses against extreme weather conditions, humankind huddling together against the elements just as our prehistoric ancestors once did in caves. It was Jacque’s lifelong dream to reside far from the throng of humanity and the incessant hum of civilization, a dream he fulfilled by obtaining a coveted position as a wildlife manager. It’s not as sexy as working in space, but there’s no better job perk than being in the great outdoors and getting to witness the magnificence of the planetary biosphere. That is why Jacque relished walking through the pitch-black woodlands on the way to a rescue and recovery mission. He savored the cold night air with its smells of dewey grass, decaying foliage, and pine trees. Wanting to heighten his other senses, he had turned off the night vision filter and blindly navigated the woodlands save for verbal prompts from the A.I.

A message came in at 2:20 am alerting that a drone found human remains. It was apparent from the aerial footage that the hiker did not die from exposure, but rather by mauling. It didn’t take any forensic analysis to know it was wolves. If this proves right, then this would be the third such incident this summer. Based on the prior incidents, the poor predators were probably lured into a ritual of human sacrifice by a suicidal cultist. It’s tragically ironic as the wolves would now be euthanized for acquiring a taste for human flesh. “We’re putting down the wrong animals if you ask me,” Jacque thought to himself.

The phenomenon of atonement sacrifices started nearly 30 years ago, in the 2110s, when droves of people around the world started committing suicides in nature settings. It was a form of mass hysteria in response to the continued ills caused by the Anthropocene, the geological era defined by Homo sapiens’ dominance of the planet. Social media posts started appearing of people jumping off cliffs, with captions recounting the litany of humankind’s ecological transgressions, the mass extinction of species, deforestation, microplastic pollution, and higher sea levels. The man-made climate crisis had already led to a near century of resource wars, refugee migrations, famines, and pandemics that brought civilization to the brink of collapse. But despite this collective punishment, some still feel the need to burden the world with their martyrdom. How special of them.

Although it came too little too late, the world finally ended all fossil fuel use by the late 21st century, and major steps were also taken to decarbonize the atmosphere with carbon capture plants, reforestation, and carbon sequestering building materials. However, global warming still continues, but now driven by the waste heat from our voracious energy consumption. Space-based solar power and nuclear fusion proved to be both a blessing and a curse, as they are clean, cheap, and abundant, so much so that global living standards greatly increased and with it, our energy gluttony. As a result, the people on Earth are now pumping out 1,000 terawatts of power annually, a magnitude 100 x that of the early 21st century. Also, add in the megajoules from all the spacecraft and cargo coming down from space, and you have a waste heat problem as the planet could not dissipate the additional thermal energy fast enough. And so, polar ice caps and glaciers continue to melt, climate systems continue to be disrupted, and mass extinctions persist, with the grief and despair over the continued ecocide giving rise to a perverse ideology that believes in the culling of humans.

As such, Jacque’s duties to manage and protect wildlife also includes preventing suicidal encounters with animals. This is nothing new in the fields of wildlife management and zoo keeping, as unstable individuals have always jumped fences into animal enclosures, often to fatal results. But this happened so infrequently that news of such incidences would be often met with astonishment. That astonishment has now given way to apathy and annoyance as the atonements have now become just another hassle of modern life. 

Self-immolation is also not a new phenomenon, as it has always existed throughout human history as an extreme form of protest and resistance. As far back as the 4th century, Buddhist monks had set themselves on fire in protest of corrupt rule and foreign occupation. Major historical events in the 20th and 21st centuries were sparked by an act of self-immolation such as the wave of popular protests in the Middle East known as the Arab Spring. But, while self-immolation might have initially served as a powerful act of defiance that shocked both the subjugated communities and oppressors alike, its efficacy diminished with each repeated performance.

And this is the case with the eco atonements. They are just pathetic acts, especially in light of the struggle already being waged to depopulate the Earth to 3 billion people within 200 years. It is imperative that we do so, as our civilization has long exceeded the carrying capacity of this planet; we must relocate and expand throughout the solar system and to let the cosmic oasis that is Earth’s biosphere, recover. But such a mass migration is opposed by nation-states as it would be their death knell. Thus, they try to cling to geopolitical power by stoking nationalistic and xenophobic fervor against the imposition of one-world governance led by the space based elite known as the Orbitals, or derisively, the Overlords. Such regressive opposition is inevitable, but so is the triumph of social progress.

As Jacque clears the woods, he sees the spotlights from a drone hovering overhead nearly 3 meters away. It illuminates the rescue and recovery operation that is being conducted by a couple of robots and overseen by fellow wildlife manager, Biskane. His colleague isn’t the least bit concerned by the rustling noise coming from the trees as he had been tracking Jacque’s GPS location. “Glad you could join us. It’s definitely wolves, not much left of the poor bastard, but we have paw prints and hair samples,” says Biskane. Although this is Biskane’s sector of the park, Jacque had been called to the scene as he is considered the resident expert on atonement suicides. 

The autopsy report identified the time of death at approximately 6 hours. The victim was a 40-year-old male named Hugh Xi, who died of trauma from puncture wounds to the jugular and throughout his body. The wolves were identified as the Shadow Hills pack, like all packs in the reserve, they were named after the most prominent feature of their respective territories. A cross-reference of the autopsy and tagged animal database reveals that six adult wolves participated in the attack, given that the suicide victim weighed only 70 kg; they were merely a snack for the always hungry predators. They provided just enough energy for the pack to pursue bigger prey, or to be supplemented with other smaller animals. Either way, the wolves were still on the hunt rather than resting in their usual post kill slumber.

With the retrieval of the remains already being handled, there was little need for Jacque at the recovery site, so he sets out to retrace the steps from both the predators and their prey in order to get a better understanding of how the incident unfolded. He follows Hugh Xi’s trail, which consists of drops of blood every few meters. Even during the day, it would have been hard for the naked eye to notice, but it’s a clear invitation to a grey wolf’s powerful nose. After a half a kilometer of following the trail, he’s surprised to discover a second trail of blood next to Hugh’s. So, it seems that he has a companion, but what has happened to them? Did a suicide pact become a solo act? He notifies Biskane of his findings.

The second trail of blood stops at the point of its discovery, but his night vision filter is able to locate a set of footprints that veer left from Hugh’s trail. He follows this new set of clues through some woodlands, which isn’t difficult to navigate as the thin trees are widely spread apart. A visual display projecting from his smart lenses alerts him to a creek three meters in front of him. He proceeds to follow the footprints down the slope of the creek. The mystery hiker must have waded in hoping to throw off their scent to any pursuing wolves, just as antebellum African Americans once did when eluding the canine companions of their enslavers.

As he considers his next move, a sudden burst of movement from across the stream startles him. It’s most likely fleeing deer. He really shouldn’t be out here alone for where there’s deer, there’s also a good chance that a mountain lion is lurking nearby. While the light from his vest should scare away the notoriously shy creatures, it would provide little deterrence against a desperate big cat. In no way does Jacque want to have such a surprise encounter with an apex predator, his light exoskeleton and non-lethal deterrents would give him a chance to fend off or to flee an attack, but it’s best to avoid such a scenario all together.

He does have a real-time feed on the movement of all tagged animals in the reserve, but given the healthy birthrate of all the animal populations, only a portion has been tagged and tracked. As Jacque heads back to the recovery site, he has the ubiquitous A.I., known as the AllGodRhythm, query Hugh’s cloud to see if he left an obligatory suicide note, and also to get any clues as to whom Hugh’s companion may have been.

PING, he has a hit. While not a blatant suicide note, there is footage of Hugh standing on an overlook located near the entrance of the reserve surrounded by a crowd of tourists. You can see the sadness in his eyes even before he speaks. “Even this remote wildlife reserve is overrun by people crowding out one another’s view just as we crowd out other species. It’s just what we do. And the worst part about being in crowds is still feeling alone.” He looks down while saying this. “There are too many of us, too many of us alone. Being birthed in artificial wombs has caused us to be cold and detached. Cold, but still causing the world to melt.” He says nothing more but just stares off into the distance. The clip ends.

According to the AllGodRhythm, there are no other postings related to Hughe’s atonement suicide, and while he has viewed atonement clips, the number of such views is no more than that of the average person. And it is inconclusive as to whether he has ties to eco-extremists as they operate off the grid and leave no data trails. But Jacque is willing to bet that he was guided through the reserve by an off-grider.

He has little sympathy for Hugh, as he too was born from an artificial womb and was raised without parents in a collective. While there is truth to his lament of social isolation and loneliness, life is what one makes it. This is not a dismissive banality, but a profound truth. We are the makers of this world, and the climate crisis is a harsh reminder of that fact. We are big brain primates who have always thought to bend nature to our will. We created deities with the hope of controlling nature and conquering death; we created technology to exceed the limits of our flesh; long before CRISPR, we modified crops and domesticated animals, and now, we are remaking our own genome.

For far too long we have been profligate youths too immature to handle our abilities, threatening nuclear tantrums, hedonistically exhausting resources and disregarding the future. But we’ve gradually matured generation by generation and are now doing the best we can to make up for our past mistakes. We have mostly vanquished abject poverty, eradicated diseases, and returned country-sized swaths of land to protective habitats. But one thing that is perplexing, is that despite creating more humanistic societies and genetically engineering smarter, kinder, and gentler human beings, we still have our petty squabbles and conflicts.

And we still have neurotic personalities who will always be disillusioned with modernity. Maybe atonement is just part of natural selection, a way to root out the weak genes. Wow, I just advocated culling, I’m no better than the eco-extremists. While I like to think of myself as well adjusted, maybe I have a schizoid personality, after all, I do reside in a remote wilderness where sometimes I won’t see another person for a few days. I like to think of myself as having a pioneering spirit as I long to roam, to explore new places free of the confines of group consensus and social hierarchy. I would have made for a good asteroid miner or an outer solar system explorer if it weren’t for being claustrophobic during space travel. I found that out the hard way on a voyage to Mars.

An alert comes in, notifying them that the Shadow Hills pack has been tracked to a location four kilometers away, the pack’s movement indicates that they’re stalking prey. It’s almost dawn but a drone image still isn’t available. Knowing that he won’t be able to hike to their location before the pack makes a kill, Jacque calls in a passenger drone to ferry him to the coordinates. 

After a few minutes, a giant carbon fiber dragonfly with electric-powered rotators for wings, gracefully descends from the sky. Jacque climbs in and uses his neuralink to sync with the drone, allowing him to pilot the craft with just his thoughts. After fastening his seatbelt, he makes a quick vertical takeoff and accelerates to the pack’s destination a few minutes away.

He hopes that the prey they are stalking is just an ungulate, and not Hugh’s mysterious companion. The drone zooms across the wooded and hilly terrain at a speed of 90 kph. The hills soon give way to open grassland, the horizon faintly glowing from the returning dusk. He soon sees the wolf pack confidently jogging along the grassland as they close in on their quarry, unconcerned with the drone passing overhead.

As he flies past them, he spots a lone figure wearing a face mask and a jumper standing in the open grassland, approximately a quarter kilometer ahead of the pack. Jacque attempts to ping them, but the message is not received as they have no neuralink implant, definitely an off-grider. The wolves are close enough to make a sprint for the kill, but the hovering drone keeps them at bay. He maneuvers to land in-between the hiker and the wolves but is startled by a flare that shoots past the cockpit and bursts in the sky above. Looking down, he sees the off-grider waving him away with a flare gun in their right hand.

Given that they’re armed, he pulls the craft back to a safe distance. The wolves also keep their distance for the same reason. The off-grider, seeing their tentativeness, decides to trigger their predatory response by turning around and running away. It does the trick as the wolves quickly rush in for the kill. No longer on the endangered list, these wolves will be captured and put down for hunting humans. I hope they enjoy their last meal.

Jacque couldn’t be faulted for aborting his rescue attempt, as it would put him at risk, and who is he to deny someone the right to decide when and how they end their own life? Oh well, it’s just one less ungrateful soul who took life for granted, what a sin.

Cross Off The Stars

I have raced ahead of Mercury’s sunrise for 58 days straight

I have surfed the waves of Maui and summited Everest

Ran the equator of Mars

Escaped ice pirates on Ceres

Hopped from one Galilean moon to the next

Flew like a bird in the skies of Titan

Floated in the rings of Saturn

Watched the geysers of Enceladus rain down from above

Base jumped off Veronas Rupes

Dreamt of Alpha Centauri

I did all of this with you

And now I embark on a one way trip to the surface of Venus, for

I have already been crushed by love.