WacoWas AnAccident
Ex-Bluelighter
Holmgren bent low in the dusty air and, with the metal scraper and fine dust brush in either hand, carefully exorcised the remaining clods of dirt and sediment from the area, brushing away the fine streams of sand as they trickled down the rock face. He worked in this manner for about thirty minutes, until all the sediment had been removed, exposing the hard black object that had lain hidden in the rock for centuries. It was not entirely alien to him, this object, as he had seen three of them before, two now on display at the History Archive in Crophelus. He had discovered one of them himself, almost five years ago now, while excavating the remains of an ancient complex in the southern Acrophylian Mountains.
He handled the object with a tender touch, picking it up and placing it gently in the padded box at his feet. The object was a hard black rectangle, the once obsidian surface thoroughly scratched but, thankfully, not punctured in any way. The black had been dulled to a meager gray now, faded with time and harrowed by the elements. The material of the box itself was not unknown; many objects composed of the same hard substance, with great variation in size and color, had been found over the years. It was a simple polymer, sturdy and durable and frequently used by the ancients for a variety of purposes. Most of those purposes could only now be guessed at, and there was never any shortage of guesses.
The compound was now, in modern times, unknown. The method for manufacturing it had been deduced well over a hundred years ago, but the compound was rather counter-intuitive. It required superheating a chemical soup and then condensing it under enormous pressure. While the finished product would take the shape of any mould, it degraded at an alarmingly slow rate, which was the reason why so many of the polymer objects still pockmarked the landscape after all these years. While the polymer was indeed versatile and durable, bio-organic compounds had long ago been discovered that offered the same advantages without the waste. Still, Holmgren was glad that the ancients had been so focused on the manufacture of the stuff, because it frequently offered tantalizing glimpses into the mysterious world of the past.
So much had been lost, and the historians could only piece together so much from the bits and pieces left laying around. Huge works of masonry left buried in the earth, the ruins of enormous cities hedged on all sides by a toxic swamp, relics and artifacts that spoke of vibrant populations and sophisticated social structures; it all pointed conclusively to an ancient world of infinite complexity that had somehow been buried by the sands of time.
Holmgren sighed, and it was lost in the hot air. The wind had begun to blow with a fury while he worked and Holmgren snapped the lid of the box shut and headed back to the lab.
* * *
Davidson was already busy when he got back.
His full name Lylan Davidson, but full names had become merely formality now, a comfortable tradition which people obstinately clung to. There was comfort in tradition, in the past. It was what drove the historical industry, a very human drive to uncover the past and decipher the secrets of those who came before. Holmgren could never quite put his finger on it. He had been taught that human history was entirely cyclical. The present frequently mimics the past. The drive to uncover the past, then, had to be rooted in some instinctual belief that by understanding the world of the ancients, we could shed some light on the world of today. By understanding them, we could understand something about ourselves and it was generally accepted that humans knew far too little about themselves.
The interconnectivity of it all baffled Holmgren at times. Full names as a method of identification had become obsolete as a direct result of the ancient world. Optical and neural implants had eased the burden of interpersonal communication greatly in the last one hundred years. Verbal communication had evolved into a way of augmenting neural-net linking, rather than the other way round. Complex ideas and arguments could be reduced to a data stream and uploaded to your neighbor’s implant. Research that had taken ten years to compile could be downloaded to the implants in just a few minutes. Retinal implants made identifying strangers as easy as looking them in the eye and running an optical scan.
And these advances had greatly improved the quality of life in general. A person could walk into a dwelling anywhere in the modernized world, have their retinal implant scanned, and the automated parts of the house would instantly know everything of relevance about the visitor; what their drink of choice was, what kind of music made them most relaxed, the correct temperature to set. The technology was remarkable.
And it had all come from the ancients.
He handled the object with a tender touch, picking it up and placing it gently in the padded box at his feet. The object was a hard black rectangle, the once obsidian surface thoroughly scratched but, thankfully, not punctured in any way. The black had been dulled to a meager gray now, faded with time and harrowed by the elements. The material of the box itself was not unknown; many objects composed of the same hard substance, with great variation in size and color, had been found over the years. It was a simple polymer, sturdy and durable and frequently used by the ancients for a variety of purposes. Most of those purposes could only now be guessed at, and there was never any shortage of guesses.
The compound was now, in modern times, unknown. The method for manufacturing it had been deduced well over a hundred years ago, but the compound was rather counter-intuitive. It required superheating a chemical soup and then condensing it under enormous pressure. While the finished product would take the shape of any mould, it degraded at an alarmingly slow rate, which was the reason why so many of the polymer objects still pockmarked the landscape after all these years. While the polymer was indeed versatile and durable, bio-organic compounds had long ago been discovered that offered the same advantages without the waste. Still, Holmgren was glad that the ancients had been so focused on the manufacture of the stuff, because it frequently offered tantalizing glimpses into the mysterious world of the past.
So much had been lost, and the historians could only piece together so much from the bits and pieces left laying around. Huge works of masonry left buried in the earth, the ruins of enormous cities hedged on all sides by a toxic swamp, relics and artifacts that spoke of vibrant populations and sophisticated social structures; it all pointed conclusively to an ancient world of infinite complexity that had somehow been buried by the sands of time.
Holmgren sighed, and it was lost in the hot air. The wind had begun to blow with a fury while he worked and Holmgren snapped the lid of the box shut and headed back to the lab.
* * *
Davidson was already busy when he got back.
His full name Lylan Davidson, but full names had become merely formality now, a comfortable tradition which people obstinately clung to. There was comfort in tradition, in the past. It was what drove the historical industry, a very human drive to uncover the past and decipher the secrets of those who came before. Holmgren could never quite put his finger on it. He had been taught that human history was entirely cyclical. The present frequently mimics the past. The drive to uncover the past, then, had to be rooted in some instinctual belief that by understanding the world of the ancients, we could shed some light on the world of today. By understanding them, we could understand something about ourselves and it was generally accepted that humans knew far too little about themselves.
The interconnectivity of it all baffled Holmgren at times. Full names as a method of identification had become obsolete as a direct result of the ancient world. Optical and neural implants had eased the burden of interpersonal communication greatly in the last one hundred years. Verbal communication had evolved into a way of augmenting neural-net linking, rather than the other way round. Complex ideas and arguments could be reduced to a data stream and uploaded to your neighbor’s implant. Research that had taken ten years to compile could be downloaded to the implants in just a few minutes. Retinal implants made identifying strangers as easy as looking them in the eye and running an optical scan.
And these advances had greatly improved the quality of life in general. A person could walk into a dwelling anywhere in the modernized world, have their retinal implant scanned, and the automated parts of the house would instantly know everything of relevance about the visitor; what their drink of choice was, what kind of music made them most relaxed, the correct temperature to set. The technology was remarkable.
And it had all come from the ancients.
