Mars Robot

MARS ROBOT

Year 2079. Earth agonizes. After centuries of overusing its natural resources, humanity is cornered. Global warming, pollution and overpopulation seem to make up a deadly cocktail.

And to top it all, nature seems to want to strike the final blow: a series of volcanic eruptions turn huge territories into wastelands, increasing the general famine.

In this context, governments look for solutions to their problems through state-of-the-art artificial intelligence equipment, but what seemed to be a path to salvation takes an unexpected turn.

Despite it all, a small Martian exploration program is in progress and strives to survive. Without anyone’s suspicion, it might be the way out of a crossroads for a species that managed to rule a planet, but whose time is now running out.

One boy, two worlds and a decision that will shape the future of mankind.

Martín Manjarin, born in 1970 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is married and has two sons.

He was passionate about astronomy and astronautics from a young age. This keenness led him to dabble in the greatest masters of science-fiction at barely 10.

In the ‘80s he was part of the ‘Cosmos Generation,’ the millions of young followers who found their calling thanks to the famous TV show starring Dr. Carl Sagan.

In his teenage years he found his other passion, IT, which would follow him through the years and forge his profession.

In this first novel, he introduces us to a dystopian future where he puts his knowledge to work in order to create a world as fascinating as dark.

MARTÍN MANJARIN

MARS ROBOT

Translated by Laura Cariola

I’d like to dedicate this book, my first, to Marisa —woman, mother, wife, lifelong fighter— and to the teachers from any time and any place.

May the flame of their knowledge keep us forever safe from regression and ignorance.

Of all things, I liked books best.

Nikola Tesla

DREAMING FOR EONS

The fragile organisms that came on that piece of rock from the third planet survived the impact against the surface. A billion years ago, Mars woke up from a dream that had been going on for eons. In those times, its context was slightly favorable for life— its axial tilt had provoked its ice caps to evaporate, and there were also a few considerable active volcanoes. For these reasons, the atmosphere was denser, which increased the greenhouse effect, heating the atmosphere and evaporating more volatile substances. These in turn increased the greenhouse effect even more— it was a virtuous circle that greatly benefitted the newcomers, the small interplanetary visitors.

Panspermia seemed to have finally reached its first milestone in the galaxy. A stellar system with two inhabited planets had entered the scene.

It was a brief victory, however: every bacterium was dead in merely two weeks. It is true they had struggled to survive —life is strong-willed and refuses to give up easily; some of them even managed to reproduce. But the first Martians were also perhaps the last the planet would see.

After this jolt, Mars went back to its dream, undisturbed for another billion years.

But one day the humans came, and the Red Planet awoke from its lethargy. This time, the great propagator of life had help. Her assistants were smart and adaptable; however, despite their obvious advantages, they were also riddled with flaws.

Unfortunately, there was no guarantee that these new ambassadors to life would do a better job than their humble forgotten predecessors…

First part HUMANS

We are architects of our own destiny.

Albert Einstein

1. Planetary Desert

The view from the stratosphere hadn’t changed much in millions of years. The soft breeze that relentlessly blew all year long on Gusev crater was barely strong enough to move the suspended microparticles that caused its distinctive reddish shade. But it wasn’t always like that. During brief intervals that could be measured in days or even weeks, the tireless wind dropped and almost vanished, and then the calm seemed to win a battle. The atmospheric aerosol descended, and the planet seemed to be getting ready to see new colors in the sky. The shades of cerulean and turquoise, however, which shyly suggested they’d take over the vault, perished before they were even born —sooner or later, a storm, be it local or planetary, reinstated the war-red on the surface and its unique palette of warm colors that raised so much speculation for thousands of years among the dazzled minds that set eyes upon it, generation after generation, trying to uncover its secrets…

Looking down, the scene was rather monotonous. Rocks and other small details were invisible, and only an infinite iron oxide flatland could be seen, interrupted here and there by some craters with worn black rims. There, the wind persisted in its relentless erosion.

Actually, black was the only opponent worth mentioning; it was the only one that dared defy the supremacy against the overwhelming variety of maroons, crimsons and scarlets that only lost its influence on the poles, at the hands of the white water-ice and carbon dioxide… But here, at the equator, only the gloomy look of the worn-out areas could somewhat alter the cold-fire kingdom of red.

You really had to take a close look to see those nine small dark —almost black— dots lost in the northern end of the crater… One could have disregarded them as a minor detail in the topography, but they were laid in a particular way that could cast suspicion about their origin —they were aligned in rows of three by three. To further increase the curiosity of an unprepared observer, a few miles east of this geometric anomaly a circular structure could be made out. In the past, it was immaculately white, but with the years it turned into a shade of salmon, so now it was barely discernible from its surroundings.

There was something on the imaginary straight line that connected both mysterious formations. At first, it could have been mistaken for a dust devil, the famous whirlwinds on the Martian desert. A more detailed analysis, however, of the dust feather that moved west with tenacity towards the black dots, would reveal that it was not driven by the whims of the surface’s hot air. No, there was something down there much more striking than Martian meteorology in action…

2. Awakening

Starting...

STAR CORPORATE BIOS Version 1.0a (11/04/2077)

Copyright Star Corporate 2068-2077

One processor detected .......................................................[OK]

Checking processor: 128 Core Intel Miracle 6.8 Thz…......[OK]

Checking RAM memory 16 Ptbytes ..................................[OK]

Battery status........................................................................[OK]

Battery charge......................................................................100%

Checking global systems......................................................[OK]

Loading primary directives...................................................[OK]

Booting subsystems..............................................................[OK]

Setting up local archives systems.........................................[OK]

Enabling system quotas........................................................[OK]

Loading operating system.....................................................[OK]

Sol #: 30

Biologic maintenance unit number two status......................[OK]

Starting activities in sector 2 ................................................[OK]

Opening hangar door ............................................................[Done]

At the surface, things weren’t too dynamic, either. The air shaped the rocks every day, powered by the soft swaying of the atmosphere, and the sandbanks grew and declined, victims of its whims.

When the observer’s viewpoint settled at no more than a couple hundred yards from the puzzling nine dots, things got very interesting— every one of them turned out to be a 650-foot square. They had a central structure, also square, surrounded by hundreds of little dots arranged in tidy rows.

Much more intriguing was the fact that every single day, exactly at sunrise, each central structure within the square area came to life and ejected a small object. Much like a slave forced to follow a boring routine, this object moved between the enigmatic dotted rows and stopped for a while before each of them. At the end of the day, the small object returned to the protection of its central den. This strange ritual was repeated day after day.

At an enhanced image’s resolution, the mysterious sliding whirlwind turned out to be a small two-seater vehicle. It was hobbling forward through the baffling topography of this striking world.

You’ve lost your marbles, that’s for sure.

C’mon, Tim, don’t be so dramatic.

No, I mean it. This thing you mean to do’s gonna cause you trouble.

"You mean it’s gonna cause us trouble. You’re here with me."

Shit! You tricked me with that ‘important finding’ business, and now you bring this tall tale up.

The conversation between the systems technician William Roberts and the first-class pilot Timothy Randall was taking place in the small two-seater rover used for short trips between the base and the study targets that were close to it. The rover was barely any different from their famous counterparts in the Apollo program which a century ago had traversed other surfaces in similarly inhospitable conditions; just like those, this one wasn’t supposed to travel more than a few hundred yards. But Bill didn’t want to push his luck by taking the big, pressurized rover. After all, the nursery was only three miles away.

What’s that about you changing the gardeners? resumed Tim. They’re not giving us any trouble. And I’d also like to know why you’re turning me into your partner in crime in all of this.

Ok, I’ll start with the last question, said Bill, clearing his throat. First of all, I wanted to stick to one of the main directives we have to comply with. You know, ‘In twos, everywhere.’ Besides, yesterday the boss, with that sixth sense all Commanders have, asked me about my mood —she sensed I was depressed—, and you know what? She wasn’t completely wrong. That’s why if she saw me taking off by myself in a rover without a trip plan… well, she could end up assuming something nutty. You know what I mean, something like ‘This guy’s manic-depressive and he’s gonna drive off until he runs out of oxygen.’ No one would have wanted to go back home 13abeled as ‘The Suicide Crew.’ Everyone would have come after me in a second.

Tim wasn’t looking at him; he was focused on the road but listening closely to his friend’s arguments.

On the other hand, resumed Bill, as you know, I’m here because I’m an excellent software engineer. I might be one of the top five in my field; but I’m also a terrible driver when it comes to anything with wheels. Whereas you’re here because you’re one of the best vehicle pilots in the solar system; be it an aerobike or an orbital insertion pod, nothing poses a challenge for you, so…

Fine, ok, say no more, interrupted Tim giving up, you were afraid of sinking in a dune and getting stuck there, so you decided to hire the carriage along with the coachman. Ok, that much is settled. Now on to the gardeners.

Actually, it’ll only be one; I don’t want to risk more. If it works, it’ll be enough.

I don’t follow.

See, the nine gardeners were loaded with an operating system and a set of pretty broad programs, but they don’t cover one hundred percent of the issues that might come up.

I thought the installed algorithms covered all imaginable contingencies. Tim spoke as he maneuvered across the final stage of the journey, which was too complicated and winding. I don’t think they’ll have issues during their mission. In fact, there haven’t been any remarkable issues since we got here.

You’ve said it— ‘They were programmed for anything imaginable;’ that’s the problem. When you’re in a different world, working on mutated plants and an exotic soil, you must be prepared for the unimaginable.

Tim was about to interrupt him, but he thought again and just turned to look at him, in an invitation to continue.

So, what I’m gonna do, resumed Bill, is install an entirely different code into one of them, one I’ve been developing from other algorithms I created.

I figure you didn’t create a code variant of the Killer. This time, Tim scrutinized him for almost two full seconds.

Well, I admit I took some parts from the Killer, answered Bill with a hint of guilt.

Thanks to the reflecting helmets and the illumination angle, Tim couldn’t see Bill turning red at this assertion. Killer was humanity’s last attempt to create the perfect soldier. It ended up with a bunch of out-of-control robots that caused more than fifty deaths. That was twenty years ago. After that failure, almost everyone forgot about using artificial intelligence (AI) in the battlefield —the risk of opening a cyber Pandora box was too big.

The ‘Easter Island’ incident, he proceeded, was the result of a succession of mistakes. Luckily for everyone, Gen. Richmond had a flash of good judgement and agreed to my suggestion of releasing the Killers in an island. I don’t want to think what would’ve happened had the test been carried out in the mainland. Bill cleared his throat; as Tim correctly suspected, this happened every time Bill got nervous. But he kept talking as the nursery grew bigger by the minute, announcing the end of the journey. Not a week goes by without me having nightmares about this. You know what I mean, you’ve been in a battlefield. I guess, after all, it must be similar to it —the shouting, the machine guns going off, scared people, confusion, and death.

Tim decided it was enough.

Stop it, dude, he said, I know what you mean. I too have my own thing; sometimes memories are more real than I care to admit. You just have to accept you gotta live with it. He was about to add something, but they were almost there. So, he sighed and said, Next stop: the nursery. Which one of the guys do you wanna see?

Bill sighed as well, then shook his head weakly, as if trying to chase away old ghosts, and said,

The most sensible thing would be to stop at sectors seven, eight or nine; they’re the closest to the base. Therefore, they’re the perfect candidates for getting visited by an auditor in the future. So, our destination should be two or maybe three, in the opposite end. He considered it for a while and then made up his mind, We’ll go to two. It offers the advantage of being flanked by two sectors. That could be useful in the future...

By this time, Tim wasn’t in the mood for guesswork, so he led the rover to sector two, hoping that along the way Bill would blurt out more than he had planned.

The sunset’s two hours from now and we’re at thirteen degrees. I hope your… he weighed the choice of words shenanigan is easily deployed.

For the first time since the ride had started, Tim heard Bill laugh heartily.

Don’t be afraid, my dear friend. Since you mention it, we don’t even have enough oxygen to go on a picnic with the gardeners. The operation will be quick and painless.

3. The Nursery

Due to the unusual detour Bill had requested Tim, the journey had taken longer than expected. The base was east of the nursery, but they passed by the closest sectors, went around the north and ended up accessing the nursery’s imaginary perimeter from the west. It was virgin soil —there were no rover or human prints. They were the first to take this road.

Wow! said Tim. The pine trees look so gloomy from this angle!

I told you a dozen times, they’re not pine trees! answered Bill.

MARS4, as implied by its name, was the fourth mission in the planet, and contrary to what everyone thought when the space age was born, there were only six in the crew. The stark, grim reality hadn’t produced ships for dozens of astronauts, artificial gravity and nuclear engines. The realization of Martian exploration relied on a few tiny inflatable modules and small landing pods that weren’t far from the ones operating on Earth for a century.

Above all, the conquest of the Red Planet wasn’t a suitable enterprise for the claustrophobic.

The limited resources in the crew lead to another important detail— each specialist had a second occupation, in order to keep a tolerably acceptable redundancy. If First Medical Officer Stevenson had an accident, there was Second Medical Officer Dr. Wei Yunli to tackle the issue. It was strange to think that the First Geology Officer had sufficient medical knowledge to perform a moderately complex surgery. But that’s how it was at Bradbury Base. The William Roberts case was also perplexing— he was in charge of operating the computer systems in the only human outpost out of the Earth-Moon system, but he was also Second Geology Officer. And on top of that, being locked in with two botanists for several months, with whom he had consulted to exhaustion, he had gained certain authority regarding the ‘operation of the nursery.’ This is why he was well aware of his next words.

I admit they look like pines; their needles are similar to those of pines; and with time they’ll produce something that will look like cones, just like the pine trees. He heard himself speak and couldn’t help but smile. But these trees are so far from being pines as we, human beings, are from lemurs. It is true that they started off as pines; more specifically cembra pines, but after that a set of really significant changes was applied so that they could suffer this environment.

The conversation continued as they got off the rover and went towards the hangar,

Yeah, I know; and I’m no botanist, either, but all these months hearing Claire talk to you gave some kind of, like... vast knowledge on our little friends. But you have to agree that we’ve never seen them from the west, with the sun in our backs, Tim continued.

They’re only two feet high now. Let’s hope when they get to two hundred feet you’ll be used to their terrifying aspect, answered Bill with a smile.

Two hundred feet! I didn’t think they’d grow so big. Besides, when they get there, I’m not gonna be in this world any more. Actually, I believe I won’t be in any world by then.

Bill smiled as they set off to surround the hangar, looking for the door.

Well, actually, that’s what we assume and what most of our theoretical models predict. Martian gravity is a lot lower, so that helps quite a bit in their getting higher. So far, so good. They’re growing even more than expected. But you know what the bottleneck is in all this…

The gardeners, answered Tim.

Exactly. It’ll be a long time before the... pines Bill smiled for taking the license of calling them just as Tim liked, are self-sufficient; and our efficient, albeit limited, six-wheeled partners won’t be able to go that far.

Unless... Tim tried to get something else out of Bill. He got it.

Unless we give them a little push. We’re like those old merchants who went from town to town selling their concoctions. We’ll give this friend of ours a tonic to improve its intelligence. And I hope it works, with all my heart.

4. The Hangar

The hangar door opened as their presence was detected. The place wasn’t pressurized, so there was no need for an air lock. Robots don’t breathe or have problems with pressure changes —only their fragile flesh-and-bone creators suffered from this. The enclosure’s only function was to protect all electronic devices from the ever-present dust and the UV rays that could damage the ‘orchard’ seedlings.

William Roberts examined the scene. ‘The crypt’ —Dima’s morbid sense of humor was responsible for the nickname—, formally known as IMU, Independent Maintenance Unit, was at the back. Its function was to charge the gardener’s batteries every night, so that it could continue its chores the next day. To achieve this, it had a modern ultracompact solid-sodium storage battery, which in turn got its energy from the solar panels that covered half the roof.

Its design fitted its ‘client’s’ like a glove. It also had a data connection through which the robot could synchronize to the base or receive software updates.

On the left, the orchard’s rectangular shape stood out. It had an east-west orientation, so as to make the best of the solar trajectory. The ceiling above it was plexiglass, only transparent to visible and infrared light. Its design created a small greenhouse effect, so the temperature was a few degrees higher.

A little more heat and UV-protection —this was all the seedlings needed until they developed their Van Voght shell and could be replanted outside. The problem was that would never happen, thought Bill sadly. The mission that would monitor this operation was their successor, MARS5. But rumor had it that the World Council had enough votes: the mission would be ‘indefinitely postponed,’ a euphemism for not admitting that it was actually being canceled.

The seedlings would grow as long as the gardener monitored them. But when it stopped working, they’d die. And anyhow, the gardener wasn’t programmed with transplanting and transferring techniques. So, even if it managed to live long enough without mechanical or energy failures, the seedlings would continue to grow until they’d be too crowded and died, separated by a scarce few inches from one another when they reached the hangar ceiling.

Everything looks ok. Tim’s remark brought him back to reality and his priorities.

Correct, answered Bill, the seedlings are ok.

But they’re doomed. It’s such a pity. Tim knew as well as Bill that there wouldn’t be a MARS5 mission. The Seventh Cavalry would never get here with its botanists and the new software for the gardeners.

For a moment, the young pilot turned his head. This time the illumination angle allowed for eye contact, so he could see his friend’s face. He found sadness in it, no doubt. But there was something else— determination.

He wasn’t fully aware of the plan his partner had in mind, but he was certain he was determined to carry it out, even if it cost his life. He felt intimidated by that piercing look. The Second Geology Officer certainly didn’t want to hear his true remark. But to his surprise, Bill sighed and then resumed his scrutiny of the hangar. His glance stopped on the right, before the crypt.

The spring is working at ninety percent of its capacity. Excellent.

It’s lucky we have all the water we need so close under our feet. Tim was happy to see his partner change the subject. The doomed pine trees issue would just beat them down and led to nothing productive. Besides, he was also aware of this blessing: water wasn’t only necessary in the nursery; they had their own spring at Bradbury. An extracting bit provided drinking water and breathing oxygen through electrolysis.

Blessed be ISRU, Bill uttered the popular astronaut prayer.

Amen, brother. Tim smiled at the mandatory answer the astronauts had half-jokingly instated every time they remembered their reliance on this miraculous technology. ISRU kept them at the right side of the fragile line between life and death in these hostile wastelands, insensible to their existence.

5. ISRU

Since the dawn of the space age, humanity’s main goal was to get to Mars. In the early 1970s, this was the primary target for the international scientific community.

Apollo XVII was the last mission to the Moon for a long time, but even before Cernan, Schmitt, and Evans splashed down in the Pacific in late 1972, plans and projects were under way. With the powerful Saturn V rocket at hand, the solar system would open up to human curiosity. But even with this launcher, a monster that could place a quarter million pounds in the low orbit, things got... complicated —to put it subtly— when the target was the fourth planet.

The Apollo missions took three days to get to the Moon, another three days to return, plus the three or four days they were stationed —an average of ten days in total. The astronauts took every single thing they needed from Earth —fuel for the return trip, food, water and air. Everything was somehow compressed, loaded on the Apollo, and... Bon voyage!

They wanted to do the same for Mars, but it wasn’t the same distance. A round mission to the Red Planet would take no less than five hundred days, at best.

Outward journey: 220 days. Stay in Mars: 30 days. Return journey: 250 days. Total: 500 days per mission.

All the air a person breathes in five hundred days —which equaled to fifty Apollo missions— had to be compressed and stored, and to that the drinking water and the food had to be added. This would be multiplied by the number of astronauts who would travel, and then came the several hundred gallons of fuel.

Human pride was smacked in the face— the trip to Mars would have to wait.

Decades went by and no cutting-edge technology came out for space propulsion. No one discovered the Star Trek teleportation system, nor a spectacular ship from another civilization landed at UN HQ to reveal their technology secrets. We still relied on our revered chemical rockets, with all their raw limitations, to get out of Earth.

With this obstacle in sight, very present in the global science guild, the use of ISRU technologies gained more and more strength and was eventually —righteously— considered the only way for humankind to set off on the conquest of deep space.

ISRU is simply the acronym for In-Situ Resource Utilization, basically and roughly something like ‘let’s use whatever we find on the destination site so we can make it back home in one piece.’

It’s a logical solution in a way; humankind has turned to it frequently. The biggest discovery journeys in history applied ISRU. Could anyone imagine a successful outcome for Columbus’ or Magellan’s voyages if the crews would have relied exclusively on the food they carried from Spain?

ISRU would help humanity make its exploration voyages through the solar system happen. An impossible dream until then, the conquest of Mars was now within the World Council’s budget. The missions were rather simplified; not so much as to succeed with only one launch —like the Apollo—, but enough to set a formal mission schedule with targets that increased in complexity.

With ISRU, in Mars astronauts would drink Martian water, breathe Martian oxygen and use fuel for the return journey taken from its atmosphere and undersoil.

This time, finally there’d be no obstacles to the conquest of Mars.

Humanity erred on the side of arrogance again, and nature was about to slap its wrists once more...

6. Albuquerque

This was supposed to be a big day. For anyone else, maybe, one of the greatest in their life; but William Roberts had mixed feelings.

He had been notified the night before. It was a fact— he had been selected for the MARS4 mission. He should have felt full and over the moon, but against all odds, he was very depressed. Ten years before, when he had applied along with hundreds of candidates, he was certain he’d do anything to get a spot to go to Mars.

But it wasn’t the same now. He still felt the same passion for the Red Planet as he did in his teenage years, but... but now he had Samantha.

He loved that woman, and the result of the unconditional love they shared came seven years ago— Christopher, the number two reason why he now hesitated to accept the designation.

A key day began. He sighed deeply and reached out to feel his wife’s body. But she wasn’t in bed any more. He should have imagined —the smell of toast gave away Sammy’s current location.

He sat at the end of the bed to put his socks on. When he turned towards the window, a few morning sun rays managed to overcome the branches of the larch tree that guarded the house. He was dazzled for a moment; this wasn’t even close to a serious situation, but he instinctively closed his eyes for a second, long enough for the room sensors to communicate the piece of news to the house brain, and it decided to take corrective action. Before Bill even realized it, the chromatic filter on the window had reduced the access of light by seventy percent.

He smiled to himself; in this age of domotics, he couldn’t help but feel his privacy somewhat invaded. Each and every one of his daily activities was analyzed and assessed in order to improve his wellbeing. But he had to admit —noblesse oblige— that the ‘domohomes’ had saved more lives in their scarce three decades of existence than all the firefighters in the history of mankind. Nevertheless, he wasn’t entirely convinced of this change.

By the time he put on the second sock and stood up, the light had begun to recover the lost ground. When he finally left the room, the sun shone again as usual.

He started going down the stairs almost at the same time as Chris, but the kid outran him swiftly and sat at the table, watching Bill reach him with a triumphant grin on his face.

I beat you, dad!

Chris! exclaimed Bill in faked anger. I told you many times you can get hurt climbing down the stairs like that. Besides, you didn’t say good morning.

The child turned serious, then got up and greeted his father.

Good morning, daddy, he said with a kiss.

Good morning, Chris. The bus will be here soon, I hope you’ve done all your homework...

Now Chris sat still, staring off to space. Far from getting worried, Samantha shook her head repeatedly, uneased.

Crap, muttered Bill resignedly. House! he said, cancel holo signal.

His son suffered an almost immediate small spasm and addressed his father.

Dad! he exclaimed blushing, I was playing with Carl!

Chris, answered Bill, you know in this house no one uses holo when we sit at the table. It’s a matter of respect towards others. I only have a few minutes to see you in the morning, and you sit there like a zombie... Besides, you haven’t eaten your cereal yet.

Sorry, dad, quavered Chris, it’s just sometimes in this house we’re so… he paused for an instant as he considered the right word, but it was hard with the holo off. He finally found one that was pretty close to what he felt. He blurted it out like a whiplash, old-fashioned.

We’re not old-fashioned, retorted Bill, we just have—

Yes, we are, interrupted Chris. And also, I don’t know why you send me to school... Almost no one goes there!

Bill was surprised at Chris’s answer, but not so much as Samantha’s perplexed stare suggested. He knew sooner or later his son would notice his family was different from most. He had a short speech mentally prepared for when that day came, although he regretted having so little time to talk to him —the school bus would be there in a few minutes. Still, he cleared his throat and said in his most appeasing tone,

Son, I will ask you one simple question: what’s six times eight?

Forty-eight, dad, answered Chris immediately with a smile.

Why do you smile, son?

Dad, when you said a question, I thought you’d ask something hard!

So, you thought that was easy?

Chris kept smiling; he obviously thought his dad was playing a joke on him, so he decided to lead him on, see where they’d get.

Yes, dad, anyone can know that!

Bill was satisfied. The talk was going where he wanted, so he continued,

You mean any of your friends who don’t go to school, Hassan or Alberto for instance, wouldn’t have any trouble answering that simple question either?

The kid’s smile faded. His father mentioned his two neighbors; they were his age and weren’t bad, save for their mocking because he went to school. Just like him, every morning they waited for the school bus. Unlike him, they didn’t get on it. They just went to their front door and greeted the students sarcastically, reminding them they were wasting their time, while they stayed at home, playing with their holos.

No, answered Chris, they could, too.

Even if I called them right now and they were here with us? asked Bill.

Sure— Well, Chris pondered, they couldn’t right now. You blocked the holo signal at home, so they wouldn’t be able to log in.

Bill grinned in satisfaction. Then he proceeded,

So, if in two years Alberto, Hassan and you wanted to work in an underwater fish farm, where there’s no holo network, who do you think those people down there would hire?

Chris hesitated for a second, but then looked at his father and said doubtfully,

Well— me, I guess. The boy paused. He seemed to be gathering courage. Then he said, But I don’t really know if I’ll ever work.

What was that? Bill was shocked.

Yeah, I mean, you're the only one who works in this neighborhood. Actually, Hassan, Alberto— well, everyone makes fun of me, they say my dad’s a… a…

A weirdo, Bill grudgingly completed the sentence.

Yeah, dad, that’s what they say. Their own parents don’t work. The Federation bonus gives them more than enough to be happy. After firing the heavy artillery, Chris didn’t have the courage to keep looking into his father’s eyes, so he looked down to the cereal bowl and started eating, although he wasn’t very hungry.

Bill hadn’t prepared an answer for this argument. How did they get here? He tried to remember how everything had started, though actually he had appeared on scene when the tragedy was at a late stage. Nevertheless, he tried hard to put an order to the events he had witnessed and many others he had seen in historical documentaries.

Basically, everything started with the automation of virtually every industrial process. Manpower was gradually becoming less necessary, and unemployment gained ground in every social class in a slow downward spiral that began even before the turn of the century. Governments were aware of it, so they started offering some kind of aid to those excluded. As the years went by, what had started as a bonus plan for food broadened its scope. Governments raised the allowances —after the food came the clothing contributions. Later on, when building a house with 3D-printing robots became an absurdly inexpensive enterprise which only took a week, the housing bonuses kicked in. After that came the additionals. If a citizen always dreamt of playing the saxophone, why not give them one? If someone always wanted to have a car to travel around the Federation, fine! Why not give it to them? The raw materials for the parts are extracted by machines at absurd prices; then the parts are manufactured by robots in entirely automated factories at minimum cost, and lastly everything is assembled at a cost close to zero. If all these additionals help make citizens happy —and as a bonus they don’t start a social revolt— why not do it?

It’s a utopia come true!

Machines serving man!

Humans would finally live a life filled with spare time and leisure.

Infinite vacations!

But it seemed like not everyone was aware of the ‘bonanza’ they were blessed with. The suicide rates increased year after year, and they were by far the highest in history. What’s more, every week thousands of people burned their brains in several-day-long holo sessions. But, as usual, despite everything, the world kept turning.

Half a century after the first bonuses, we came to this present, a society where work is strictly connected to machines, to the point that people who voluntarily enroll in the workers record —about ten percent of the population— are derogatorily called ‘the weirdos.’

He didn’t feel like he was part of a utopia; more like this was a straight path to racial extinction. But how could he tell his son all of this and make him understand? The boy was mostly surrounded by people who created a false dilemma.

Chris, I don’t want you to think like that anymore, Bill resumed the conversation as Chris ate some cereal. I would never force you to act one way or another. I want you to reach to the conclusion by yourself. I work and trust me, I’m very happy with what I do. Working in something you like will give meaning to your life and I can assure you that moment will come, sooner or later.

Are you sure, daddy? When will it come? How can I tell? Chris looked his father in the eye again with true, evident curiosity.

Son, when the time comes, you’ll know. There’s no way of describing a... calling. It’s just something you like to do, you enjoy fully, and it generally helps others. Chris was about to answer, but Bill followed his speech, I know your friends say they won’t do anything when they grow up, but— what would happen if someday Hassan or Alberto wanted to be astronauts, like you say you want to be? Chris stared at him very seriously now but didn’t answer.

Bill almost felt a lump in his throat, but continued, Do you still want to be an astronaut?

Of course, I do, dad! answered the boy automatically, speaking the truth.

Do you remember our deal?

Yes, daddy, I do. Chris smiled openly. Every week his father made a thing out of remembering a conversation they had a long time before.

Do you know what’s the first thing I realized when I became an astronaut?

Bill was a computer specialist, but he had traveled a couple of times to space stations in LEO and once to the Moon for work. Two years before, during his stay at Amundsen station, he had made a brief outing. He had been taken a photo there that had fascinated Chris. From then on, the boy assumed his father was an astronaut. The Roberts decided that, as long as their boy was younger, it’d be much harder to explain his father’s true profession, so they let that little white lie pass; it didn’t hurt anyone at the time and gave Chris a conversation topic with his friends.

That you had to wear your suit to survive?

No— Well, yeah, that’s true, Bill agreed with a smile. His son was very mature in many things, but sometimes Bill forgot he was still a seven-year-old boy. The first thing is using a space suit to survive, but the second thing I realized is that in space we only rely on our decisions. There’s no holo there. If they had to choose an astronaut to go to the Moon, who do you think they’d hire?

The message seemed to touch Chris deeply. He answered very seriously.

Hassan and Alberto would never be able to work in any of that.

Chris, when you turn eighteen, you’ll have advanced knowledge in math, physics, chemistry, electronics, psychology, genetics, medicine and a dozen other disciplines, and you’ll be able to choose whatever you want for your future. Your friends, however, won’t even know how to read or sum, and they’ll rely entirely on the holo network.

At this point, Bill thought that eighty percent of the Earthlings were illiterate; the number rose to ninety-five percent among people under twenty. It seemed like humankind wanted to give up knowledge. Now they relied on technology more than ever. A general failure in the global data network and they’d be back to the Middle Ages. Humans were slaves to other humans once; now they were slaves to technology. But he’d fight from his position to try