Radio Capsule

None of them slept well. The night was filled with the sounds of unknown creatures; hoots and yelps and chitters. Neither Jasper nor Dez could remember the last time they’d spent a night in the wild and Zyon hadn’t been under a real sky in his entire life. 

Surprisingly he was taking all of this the best, even though he was the only one enduring constant bouts of gravity sickness. Dez and Jasper could never understand the meaningfulness of a pilgrimage to the almost mythical birth planet of one’s species. That said, he hadn’t fully completed his bone density treatments, and carrying the weight of anything beyond his own body was exhausting. 

They hadn’t been prepared for an expedition. Their only supplies were a hand full of MRE’s, 3 canvas sheets, which they were using as blankets, and the clothes on their backs. The cargo hold had gone into emergency lockdown during the crash, and no one had been able to breach it once the fission core had failed. They didn’t even have a weapon among them. Not even a map; though Zyon had sworn he’d seen a city 20 kilometers North East of their position.

The next morning brought new problems. During the night, animals had torn into the MRE’s and scattered them everywhere. Jasper was so hungry that he caught a squirrel by the tail and smacked it on a tree. The three of them begrudgingly shared the small animal over a fire that Dez started using a broken bottle and a patch of sunlight.

“So,” said Jasper after popping the last bit of sinewy meat into his mouth and chewing for what felt like an hour, “were you sure you saw a city as we were crashing?”

Zyon sighed and rolled his eyes, “For the last time: I’m pretty sure. It was just hard to make out because it was, I dunno… really beige.”

“Beige?”

“Yea, beige. Like made of rock or something.”

“So how could you tell it wasn’t just more rocks?” Asked Dez.

“Because Dez,” said Zyon exasperated and still trying to chew through squirrel meat, “they were man made structures. You know, architecturally designed, geometric structures. Domiciles and edifices…”

“I get the idea,” said Dez, looking through the thick wood towards the supposed city. “It’s just that we were crashing, and you were tripping.”

“Micro-dosing,” said Zyon, lifting a finger and wincing as he adjusted his weight. He was laying on his side, with an arm propping up his head like a Persian king. “Have a little faith. I know what I saw. So long as we keep walking in a strait direction, we’ll get out of the woods eventually. Or is it clockwise?”

Dez raised an eyebrow. 

They packed up camp, which was a pitiful affair as they really had nothing and struck off in the direction they had been headed the day before.

After about 4 hours of walking they had to stop, because they had reached a sheer cliff face, ascending for what seemed like half a kilometer or more. 

“Did you happen to see this?” Asked Jasper.

“No,” said Zyon flatly. “I don’t remember seeing this.”

Dez groaned. “Have we been going in the wrong direction?”

“The sun is there,” Jasper pointed, “so we’ve been traveling North East. We’ll just have to go around.” 

“Well which around would you like to go?” Asked Dez, gesturing to the impossible wall.

“If you two are thirsty I suggest we go West.” He pointed to a glinting white shape in the cliff. “Glacier,” he said simply.

“Right,” said Zyon. “I could go for a draught.”

After another hour of pushing through branches and scrambling up shale, the trio made it to the ice and were thirstily but inefficiently slewing glacial runoff into their mouths. It proved to be an extremely frustrating process, and they were each attempting different methods. Dez was lying on his belly and using a broad leaf to funnel a small stream into his mouth. Jasper was chipping off cubes with a small multitool and melting them in his mouth. It was unclear to either Dez or Jasper what Zyon was attempting to do, but the result looked something like a cross between ice skating and some sort of traditional dance. This display came to a sudden halt as Zyon gave a sharp yelp, slipped into the wall of ice and cracked through. 

“Woah!” Jasper exclaimed. 

Zyon was still howling, but the sound was getting rapidly further away. Dez and Jasper approached the hole. Through it, they could just make out an ice slide that descended into utter darkness. Zyon had stopped screaming.

“You alive down there?” Jasper yelled. A moment passed. 

Then, “Yea, I think so.”

Jasper looked at Dez. “You didn’t happen to bring a rope, did you?”

Dez shrugged. “It’s your ship. How would I know where the ropes are?”

“Well. This is massively fucked.”

Dez just returned Jasper’s stare.

“We’re gonna have to leave him,” said Jasper.

“Guys!” Zyon yelled through the cavern. “Guys I think I found something. A way out.”

“What do you see?” Yelled Dez. 

“I see… I see a light!”

“Go towards the light,” yelled back Jasper. “It’s ok!”

“And… I see a fence!” Zyon yelled.

“Oh,” Jasper muttered.

Dez looked back at Jasper who raised both of his eyebrows. “Guess he found that city after all,” he said, and shoved Jasper down the hole. 

“Fucking fuck!” Jasper yelped.

—

The fence was at least 5 meters high and topped with rusted barbs. It looked as though it hadn’t been attended to in 50 years. Getting over it hadn’t been an option, but with some leverage the three of them were able to pry a bolder loose from the opposing hill and smash a way through. They were now walking through the vacant outskirts of what appeared to be a large, abandoned city made almost entirely of concrete. Megalithic grey buildings shadowed the street which made each footstep a distant, echoing rapport. 

As vacant as it appeared though, the city wasn’t abandoned. Dull yellow lights filled tiny square windows- just a few at first, and then more the deeper they went into the city.

“You know what’s strange about this place?” Asked Zyon, breaking the silence for the first time in a half hour of walking.

“Besides everything?” Retorted Dez.

“No shops,” said Zyon ignoring him and searching the street up and down the block.

“Yea. That is strange,” agreed Jasper. “But check out the tech.”

“What tech?” asked Dez.

“Exactly,” this place is some kind of… I dunno. Everything seems stuck in the mid 20th Century. 

“Except for that,” said Zyon, pointing to a spherical drone zipping past them high above. It took a sharp right angle around one of the buildings and then entered through a window, 10 stories up. 

“Yea, except for that,” said Jasper.

Over the next 10 minutes many more of the drones began to flood the sky in the spaces between the buildings, entering and leaving through windows that opened and shut with machine precision. 

“Delivery drones?” Asked Jasper. 

“Sure. Maybe that’s why they don’t get out much,” said Zyon.

One of the machines descended slowly and approached them. It was about the size of a large octopus with an oversized, spherical head and only five appendages that dangled below it. The three men braced themselves and checked their surroundings, but the drone slowed as it neared them, its guttural propulsion system lowering to a hum. 

When it was about a meter from them, a small drawer extended from its center of mass and three of the appendages livened, somewhat jerkily, to withdraw what appeared to be gelatin capsules, which it offered to the three travelers. 

“Ah,” said Zyon. “Drug drone.” He accepted the capsule with a little bow.

“You know what these things are?” Asked Jasper, bewildered.

“Obviously it’s a drone that gives you drugs,” said Zyon, popping the pill down into his mouth. He made a scene of slamming his palm into his throat several times. “If it’s a duck, call it a duck.”

“Right but what did you just take?” Asked Jasper again.

“Probably nothing new,” he said.

“That I believe,” said Dez. He had accepted a pill from the drone as well and was inspecting it for identifying markers. 

“Well I’m not in the habit of taking random drugs from strange robots,” said Jasper to the drone. “You’ll have to buy me a drink first.”

“No…” Dez said in a hushed voice, still looking at the pill. “It can’t be.” Jasper turned to see him focused on a small holographic emblem inside the pill of an old satellite dish. 

“What is it?” Asked Jasper.

“I know where we are.” Said Dez. “Zato.”

Zyon and Jasper’s expressions remained blank. “Should we know where that is?” Zyon asked.

“I’d be surprised if you did,” Dez said. “It was one of about a hundred and fifty secret Soviet cities in the 20thcentury. Completely closed off from the rest of the world.”

“So, we’re in the ruins of some ancient civilization?” Asked Zyon, looking around.

“Evidently not.” Said Dez. “Most of the Soviet cities were slowly abandoned over the century that followed the dissolution of their state, but I suppose some remained. They were closed cities, even to the surrounding country. Among other things, they were used as control cases for isolationist communities.”

“Here!” he said showing the shimmering 3D emblem inside the pill to the others. “This was the mark of the Zato space program. I wrote a dissertation on failed solar colonization programs of the 20th and 21st century. This city’s program came closer than anyone. They even landed a team of cosmoneaughts on the moon a year before the United States, though it never came out because Nasa blew them out of orbit on the returning trip.”

The drone was still extending one of its tendrils to Jasper, who had not yet accepted a pill and was beginning to bob slowly up and down in the air. Jasper plucked the pill from the arm and spiked it into one of the bulging black sensors on the drone. The drone immediately offered another capsule.

“What?” Said Zyon.

“I don’t think it’s going to take no for an answer,” Dez said to Jasper.

“Well it’s going to have to,” said Jasper, and then turning back to the machine. “No. I’m saying no to your drugs.”

Either the machine did not register this, or it chose not to react. Jasper turned away from it and continued walking towards the center of the city. Above them, most of the other drones had disappeared and the metropolis once again had a ghostly emptiness to it.

Zyon and Dez watched for a moment as the drone bobbed lazily after Jasper.

“Yea you shut your fucking mouth,” said Zyon to no one in particular.

Dez raised an eyebrow in his direction.

——

The trio, now quattro, crossed a blocky, algae covered bridge over what must have once been considered a river, but which now seemed little more than a drainage ditch. 

“What else do you know about this city?” Jasper said to Dez in a hushed tone, eyeing the drone.

“Well, let’s see. During the cold war…”

“I’m particularly interested in things that can help us get in contact with the local ship dock.”

Dez paused.

“For repairs…” said Jasper.

“Yes, right.” Said Dez, reorganizing his delivery. “Well normally we would be able to get our hands on a com just about everywhere, but in a place like this I’m guessing any communication to the outside world is… limited.”

“Sure, but not today. Thursday,” said Zyon, facing the sky.

“So. Some sort of government building maybe?” Asked Jasper, ignoring Zyon.

“That or a military installation,” said Dez.

Zyon slapped himself.

“What’s going on with him?” Asked Jasper.

“Some reaction to the drug.”

“Is it psychedelic?”

“Without my equipment I could only speculate, but that does seem to be in line with his symptoms,” he said looking at Zyon like a specimen.

“What sort of drug would benefit the ruling class to force upon its citizens?” Jasper asked. They were over the bridge now and walking through a square with lines of concrete statues. 

“That’s the right line of thinking for an ancient imperial society, but the Soviet state was a socialist federation, supposedly working towards the equality of all citizens, even to the detriment of the ruling class.”

“Ok, so assuming that this was a drug developed before any powerful people became corrupt in the society, what sort of drug would make everyone the same?” Asked Jasper.

“Hmm,” said Dez. He took the pill out of his pocket again and examined it. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s an inhibitor of some sort, likely with monitoring capabilities.”

“Well that doesn’t explain him,” said Jasper jerking his thumb at a now itchy and paranoid looking Zyon.

“True,” said Dez thoughtfully. “Perhaps he’s fighting it. More research to be done.” 

Zyon, who had been increasingly more agitated, suddenly clapped his hands over his ears and screamed, “No further! I can’t take another step!”

Dez and Jasper stopped so suddenly that the drone bumped into Jasper’s back.

“Hey, watch it drug bot!” Exclaimed Jasper at the expressionless drone.

Dez clasped Zyon by the shoulders and was walking him backwards. To Jasper’s surprise, Zyon immediately began to relax. 

“How are you feeling?” Dez asked Zyon.

“Not feeling,” said Zyon. “Hearing!”

“Hearing?” Asked Jasper.

“The voice. It’s inside me! You can’t hear that?”

“What does it say?” Asked Dez. 

“It says… everything. All at once. It’s too much!” Zyon began to jog back down the bridge.

Dez turned back to Jasper and lifted the pill up. “Transceiver! Old school. Probably using sub-light frequencies. That’s why it increased in intensity as we neared the center of the city. There’s a radio transmitter here somewhere.”

“Where?” Asked Jasper. “And how do you know so much about historical tech?”

“Long story,” replied Dez. “Look for the tallest building. A city this size would need to use its highest point to broadcast a signal reliably to all of its citizens,” said Dez.

Once they had rounded the corner it was clearly visible. A giant building, perhaps 300 stories or more, and at the top, a denizen metal geode.

“There’s nothing you need in there,” said Zyon, suddenly beside them again. “Here,” he said smoothly and reached into the drug bot’s dispensary to offer them each pills. “Take these. You’ll fit right in.”

“Yea, no thanks mate,” said Jasper. “It looks like you’ve had enough for all of us.”

“Really,” said Zyon. “You’ll feel much better.”

Jasper and Dez looked at each other.

“You ready for this?”

“Sure,” said Dez, and they began running to wards the mega structure, Zyon and the drug bot in tow.

Once they had gotten within 100 meters, thousands of specks began to mushroom out from the top of the building.

“More drones!” Shouted Dez.

“There!” Jasper pointed to a metro entrance. They ducked into the empty passage and ran down the broken escalators. Like the bridge, there was no litter, but it also looked as though no one had set foot here in a very long time. A massive mural of two hands holding a tomato dwarfed the still trains in the main gallery. The buzzing of drones began to fill the space with a deafening noise. 

“Through here!” Shouted Jasper. The four ducked through a service tunnel and slammed the metal door. They didn’t stop. Feet pounding, they wove through a series of corridors and staircases, each drawing them deeper inside the bowels of the mega structure. “Perhaps they were already within it,” thought Jasper. It was impossible to know.

“Broadcast bay!” Yelled Dez. He was pointing to a sign at one of the doors in the stairwell. The text was alien.

“How do you know what that says?” Asked Jasper in rushed suspicion. He was already halfway up the next flight. 

“Vse khorosho. I speak Russian.” He opened the door and ran through. Down the hall, two more turns and then Dez stopped. 

Dez and Jasper were both panting, but Jasper forced himself to hold his breath for a few moments just to listen for the drones. It seemed that, for the time being, they were no longer being pursued. Zyon and the drone also seemed to have disappeared. 

“This is it,” Dez said, gesturing to a thick metal door. There was the arch of a shallow scrape in the dull beige concrete. The door was locked with an ancient mechanical bolt that required a physical key. Jasper made short work of it with the multitool and Dez made a mental note to ask him where he had acquired such an antiquated skill. 

The door was at least half a meter thick and took both of them to pull open. They saw Zyon rounding the corner at a light jog.

“Pull,” said Jasper. 

“Comrades!” Zyon called out. “There is work to be done. Come away from that place!”

The buzz of the swarm began to fill the hallway. 

“Pulllllll,” grunted Jasper. The door creaked to a halt but was open just wide enough for them to squeeze through.

“Comrades!” Zyon called out again. Through the space they saw an ocean of machines crash into the wall and blast over themselves to get to the door. Jasper reached out and jerked Zyon through. They got the door shut just in time to hear the swarm of angry machines crashing into the other side of it in muffled waves. Dez bolted the door locked again.

“Well that ought to keep them for a while,” said Dez.

“How do you know they don’t have lasers or buzz saws or a key?” Asked Jasper.

Dez looked at him and shrugged. “It’s just what you’re meant to say in situations like this, isn’t it?”

They stepped into the room which activated several dim sconces along the walls. The large lofted space juxtaposed the brutalist city outside in nearly every way. The walls were made of a rich dark wood and were lined with shelves of books, reels of tape and electronic equipment. A long mahogany table was set for one. 

“On the upside,” Dez said, “this is the right place if we’re going to get a signal out of here.” He gestured to an area with a metal broadcast desk. The equipment was glowing and a reel to reel machine was whirring. 

“Someone must be here,” said Jasper in a hushed voice.

“Mmm, yes it would appear that way,” said Dez.

Jasper approached the broadcast desk tentatively. A tall leather chair faced the desk, and Jasper turned it slowly. Suddenly a well-dressed skeleton slumped out and exploded onto the floor.

“Christ in a cockpit!” He shouted.

“Ah,” said Dez simply.

They looked at Zyon who was still standing at the door like a robot that had been turned off. Just then a hatch opened in the floor and a small drone emerged, hovering over to the desk. It tilted slightly as it addressed the skeleton on the floor. A metallic sputtering of Old Russian came out. 

Jasper looked at Dez who translated, “Weather is nominal, Dinner is at 6… huh. It appears this gentleman is behind on his broadcast creation. Very, very behind.”

The machine hovered over to one of the vast shelves, selected a reel, and skillfully placed it on another machine. It completed this task within seconds of the first reel finishing. The switch was flipped, the first reel replaced in the shelf. Before re-entering the hatch, the drone addressed Jasper and Dez, then with a slight bow, disappeared into the floor. 

“Well, that was fun,” said Dez.

“Yea. The most fun I’ve had all day. What did it say?”

“Apparently the table will be set for four tonight.”

That evening, Dez and Jasper sat at opposite ends of the long mahogany table enjoying a dusty bottle of wine. Neither of them could read the label, but it tasted like a Merlot. Zyon, who had been unresponsive since entering the room, still stood near the door, looking wide eyed into the room, and the skeleton broadcaster, or whoever he was, still lay in shards on the floor.

“Nice evening,” said Dez, lifting his glass.

“Yea, this sort of worked out. Any chance we’ll get a signal out with that lot?” Jasper asked, gesturing towards the broadcast desk.

Dez let out a soft sigh and watched the wine swiveling in his glass. “Not unless I can get to the roof and modify the antenna. From what I can tell, the frequency this machine is broadcasting on is useless for our purposes and it seems to be fixed in here.”

They both took another sip of wine and listened to the relentless muffled slamming of the drones on the other side of the thick metal door. 

“Hmm,” said Jasper.

The service drone emerged from the floor again carrying four silver platters topped with matching domes. 

“Fucking finally,” groaned Jasper. “I could eat a planet.”

Dez too looked relieved at the sight of the presentation. Two platters were placed at the ends of the table in front of Jasper and Dez, and two at the sides of the table for the skeleton and the catatonic Zyon, whom Jasper had turned to face the wall on account of his unsettling gaze. The service drone, hovering above the middle of the table, extended its spindly limbs and raised the platter tops off in a single impressive gesture. 

“God damn it!!” Yelled Jasper, throwing a steak knife at the service drone which glanced off, narrowly missing Dez.

Normally this would have perturbed Dez to no end, but he too was enraged, slapping the silver plate hard into the wall. Pills scattered everywhere. The pills on Jasper’s plate where stacked into a neat mountain which he crushed as he ran across the table, tackling the service drone. Its tiny propulsion system strained against the weight, and it tried to escape.

“Hold it still!” Yelled Dez. He had hoisted what appeared to be a flat wooden bat. He swung it into the machine which protested evenly in Old Russian. 

“Hit it again!” Cried Jasper. 

Dez hit it again and again, until the bat splintered. The machine sparked and sputtered. 

“Kill it!” Jasper yelled.

“I’m trying,” yelled Dez, flinging the remains of the bat across the room where, by chance, it struck Zyon in the head. He did not react.

They took it over to the metal broadcast console and smashed it into everything they could find. Finally, the machine gave up. For good measure, Jasper slammed it into the reel to reel machine, destroying it. At this, Zyon let out a long groan and fell to his knees. His hands found the back of his bleeding head. 

“What the hell?” He said in a slow crescendo of wonderment. 

Dez and Jasper were breathless on the pill strewn floor.

Zyon crawled over and collapsed next to them. 

“Everything hurts. Why?” He said half pointing to the Skeleton and smashed drone between Dez and Jasper, “What is happening?”

Neither Dez nor Jasper answered him. 

“Ahhh,” moaned Zyon, sinking to the floor again. I am hung over like you wouldn’t believe. That stuff was a trip!”

“You hear that?” Jasper asked Dez.

Dez listened. “Yea, it stopped,” he said. They both looked at the metal door. The drones had ceased their attempts at entry.

Jasper stood up, retrieved the wine glass from where it lay in a red stain on the rug and refilled it. He looked out the window. Hundreds of lights were being turned on all over the city. He looked back at the decimated broadcast console. 

“Think we’ll be able to get that thing working tomorrow?”

“Да,” said Dez, patting the skeleton’s head lightly. “We’ll figure something out.”