2400 AD
29

The child’s eyes returned to normal. Somehow he knew that the other Android was not hostile. He beckoned him closer with a finger.

“It’s not far now. The tunnel ends up ahead. Follow me.”

“What is your name, child?”

“Thespian,” he said, holding out his hand.

The Android shook his hand.

“Feldspar. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Thespian said, smiling for the first time since the chaos began.

They walked onwards through the tunnel. “Do you think the other kids are safe?”

Feldspar hunched his shoulders. “I do not know. We can only wait and see. Here take my hand, that way we won’t lose each other.”

The moment Thespian took Feldspar’s hand they both disappeared.

***

In the other tunnel a different scenario was unfolding.

Both Androids were engaged in a tumultuous battle while the child cowered behind a power supply box watching them. The woman with the child trembled and sobbed.

The child seemed too young to evaluate an apocalyptic experience. In the low light of the tunnel the Androids fired point blank at each other, and missed. They punched and kicked and flew into each other with a tremendous force. Neither succumbed. They were equally matched.

And then the child screamed.

A shrill scream that escalated into a high pitched sonic whistle.

Both Androids ceased fighting. They ceased moving. The child approached the Xenocon Android and deftly opened a cover on the back of his head and yanked some wires out. The Android stopped breathing, the color of his eyes turned black and he dropped.

The other Android saw this happening but couldn’t do anything. It was as if the child’s scream had paralyzed his system. The child stood before him and snapped his head forward.

Life returned to the Android.

***

In the anti-simulation lab’s control room, Tumelo prepared for the extraction of the gauntlet team. He had done this a thousand or more times since joining Denizen 1 and he could do it blindfold, so he whistled while he worked.

And then the alarms went off.

He stopped whistling. “What the hell?” and focused on a spike coming from DeniSat, 4 km’s above.

The monitor in front of him showed subsurface activity on the north-west coast of Africa, two hundred kilometers out into the Atlantic Ocean - an earthquake measuring 9.825 on the Richter scale. The largest one ever recorded. The last one, some ten years earlier, caused by the Toba eruption, measured 9.2.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” He scrambled around the monitor, pressing buttons and rebooting to confirm the integrity of the system, but it came up a second and third time.

The depth of the earthquake measured one and a half kilometers. The image showed it as a “Dip-slip” earthquake when the ocean floor moves up and down. On the ocean floor, the Earth’s crust is a series of rock islands that are floating. These rock islands, or plates, are constantly shifting throughout time. These plates eventually rub against, bump into or drift away from each other and can result in volcanic action, mountains forming or earthquakes occurring.

He knew what would happen next. A tsunami.

The ocean floor must move vertically for a tsunami to occur. The force of this action could create a tsunami the likes of which had never been seen.

Within seconds of the alarm, Gideon rushed into the lab.

“What’s happening?”

“Earthquake. Take a look.”

The graphs on the monitor still ran. Gideon watched as a smaller earthquake followed in the same area.

“We have a problem on our hands. The entire northeast African seaboard is under threat. Issue a warning to Denizen 5 in Nigeria. Evacuate the area immediately. We’re about to lose every coastal country in the area from Morocco to the Gulf of Guinea. Tell them to get ready to assist the survivors in every way they can.”

While Tumelo made the necessary calls, the control room became a hive of activity. All team leaders, Kendall l, head of AI and head of security intelligence, gathered behind Gideon. They watched the screens in front of them relay the event via satellite.

They watched as the ocean rose to more than 2000 meters. Watched as the wavelength grew from 500 to 1500 kilometers in length. Watched as the beaches and ocean basins were drained as the water retreated into itself. Watched as the tsunami waves came in, killing everything in its path.

People didn’t have the time to evacuate. Buildings collapsed. Ships capsized and ran aground in the middle of towns and cities. Cities became part of the Atlantic Ocean, and the water became a graveyard for millions of people.

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