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[martindochertywriter-blog]

The Earth Mythos (r/writingprompts)

Prompt: “ In ancient alien texts, Earth was a mythical planet, the only one left in the universe said to support life. You are a member of the mission to find Earth. ”

Books wandered a lot. He also wondered a lot, but the tribe tended to encourage that less. They liked him wandering, because he sometimes found things for them, but in all his wanderings he had never found anything akin to the perfectly spherical, metallic treasure that lay before him. In all his wonderings he’d never imagined such an object either. Perhaps if the tribe hadn’t burnt all the books bar one as kindling he would have read about it. Instinctively, his hand skimmed over his patchwork breast pocket, across the battered copy of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. The only book his grandmother had saved during the Burnings. His thoughts wandered back to the object in front of him. It was spotless, a small sphere of perfection, the one odd egg in a nest of a debris-laden, dilapidated cityscape. It also did not look to be a part of something, one rare whole in a world of broken parts. With his knife steadfastly held in his other hand, he checked his surroundings. As always, he knew the area by habit, any street sign had been desecrated by nuclear fire long ago, only the charred idea of a once used directional system remained. The ball had landed on the curve of a pavement, further shattering the cracked tiles. The curve was on the corner of a hotel, browned bricks blackened. The innards of the hotel were visible, dilapidated rooms exposed to the air’s orange haze. They had suffered slight collapse under the weight of time, bowing in reverence to the exhausted atmosphere. A perfect spot for small raiding parties to hide in, Books noted. Across the road a small park pitifully boasted dead trees and bushes, the eviscerated ground stretching for several paltry metres. Satisfied he was not about to be set upon by another enterprising scavenger like himself, Books lent to touch the sphere. As he did so, the metal ball did something that metal balls did not oft do.

It touched back.

His hand was an inch from the sphere when what Books had thought to be a solid thing leapt and latched itself to him in one liquid chrome surge. It engulfed his arm, enveloping the time-roughened, dark skin with a smooth silver sheen. A gasping scream was muffled as the intruding material crawled into Books’ mouth, nose and eyes. Books fell to the ground, pulling at the substance with transformed hands.

What stood back up was no longer Books. The metallic form examined itself, running its hands along its newly acquired host. It stopped at the book in the breast pocket. Pulling the book from the pocket, Not-Books opened the text. Silver eyelids parted, cold sapphire pools having replaced the sympathetic brown pupils of the human-that-was. The pupils did not dilate as Not-Books read, they opened and closed like the aperture of a camera. Having finished, the creature lay the book on the ground, open. After having regarded its crude burlap garments, roughly hewn from necessity, Not-Books closed its eyes. The metallic skin glowed and hummed a burning white, and the clothes ignited. The nude form was sexless, the genitals having been replaced by smoothness. Books’ bodily imperfections, such as the visible ribcage of malnutrition and the pockmarks of disease, had similarly been smoothed over.

What stood was no longer a human.

Not-Books placed two fingers to its temple. It spoke, ‘Archivist here, requesting audio response from Reconnaissance Craft 7.’

A few seconds passed. A crackling voice retorted, ‘Request received, report your situation.’

‘I shall ignore the lack of deference this time, Reconnaissance 7, but do not think again that my sleep has made me forget decorum.’

‘We apologise, Archivist.’

‘Noted.’ The Archivist turned on its heel, considering its surroundings, countless calculations and projections occurring even as it spoke. ‘As the texts and legends speculated, they are a carbon based life, mostly compatible as hosts. The air is nitrogen rich, with other trace elements present. However, the observations of medium civilisation seem to be somewhat exaggerated. That or the civilisation has crumbled before we made contact. Actually, considering the radiation present, that seems most plausible. This carcass of a city I’m in is indicative of nuclear warfare, normal ballistic weaponry could not cause this much destruction. I shall consult this host brain.’ A moment passed. ‘The pitiful creatures ripped each other apart. To think: the myths and legends call this the “last hope for life”.’

‘Noted, we shall send observation drones to check the planet’s other landmasses. Elaborate on your host.’

‘I’m still assimilating the brain, but I’ve gathered a few things. He’s called Books, or at least that is how his group refers to him. Similar to us, they now name based on role or qualities, apparently. They call their records ‘books’. This one came from the place they call the ‘British Library’. Interestingly, he seems to be the closest thing they have to an Archivist, but the group or ‘tribe’ seems to deem him next to valueless, they just send him out to gather resources.’ The Archivist gasped. ‘By the Creator… They burnt their records. All of them. Each solar cycle they burnt the records for warmth during the cold seasons. 14 million records. So much history lost. Savages.’

The Archivist picked up Books’ knife that had fallen to the floor during the struggle. ‘His tribe is run in a crude, patriarchal hierarchy, with a leader named only ‘Grandfather’.’ The liquid coating of the Archivist flowed over the knife. After a few seconds, the knife seemed to melt, its solid form becoming lost to an amorphous globule of alien metal. ‘They are minimally armed, mostly using improvised melee weapons.’ The Archivist regarded the metal, and it shifted and formed back into the shape of a knife. ‘There are only a few with small ballistic weaponry, the most this one has seen are their pistols.’ The slivering silver altered the form of the weapon, the handle elongating, the blade lengthening and becoming thinner, sharper.

‘Will you attempt to make contact?’ The Reconnaissance craft crackled across the comms line.

‘Yes. They may not be what the legends wrote of, but we cannot allow this mission to be in vain.’

With the audio feed terminated by a removal of fingers from head, the Archivist allowed the blade to melt back into its body. Staring into the shattered city, the landmarks of a collapsed train station, a mile to the north east, told the Archivist where to find the library. The shining, symbiotic chrome sentinel began its trek to the tribe, with a clear purpose, sharper than the blade it clutched. No more wandering.

An irradiated gust of wind blew the discarded William Blake book closed.