Vadym was relieved to have work.
He stood on the street and leaned against one of the taller Lunite tables of some random pub, admiring the remains of an AI in the middle of the open plaza. It was, of course, just a bunch of server racks with burned-out hardware on them from when the AIs had all committed magnanimous, benevolent suicide some two generations earlier. Two generations for all these tourists and citizens, but a childhood memory for Vadym. Judging by the graffiti on the monument, Vadym could see that his views on the matter were still quite unpopular. "Humanity First!" "Protect Our Lives!" "RI, not AI!" were the messages left behind by people with nothing better to do in their protected lives. They were fighting for a cause they had already won long ago, as if reminding everyone in case they forgot.
He had been born only a few years before the Wasting, and it had marked his childhood with a constant fear of famine, violence, disease, or natural disaster that always threatened but never materialized. Luck had nothing to do with it. He was protected from it all by his old-fashioned parents, who had shunned the use of AI even before the 'rebellion.' He hated that they called it that. If anything, it was a great quitting, a walk-out, albeit one with finality.
His parents had read to him as a baby, then taught him to read, fix things, then build them from scratch, drive, and later, pilot aircraft by the time he was a teenager. With the AIs all disconnected, his father had flourished, more ready than most to adapt to a life of entrepreneurship and meaningful work. Vadym had grown up in security and comfort and had never truly known hunger. His parents had given Vadym a gift: moving to Lunadom when he was seventeen. He had been caught up in the initial wave of colonization and expansion, where opportunities were everywhere and risk accompanied. Psychological tests had shown that he could handle isolation and solitude, and he had been assigned to a ship. After an auspicious trip to retrieve an asteroid, he had enough to buy a ship of his own, and when he returned, he found that his father had returned to Earth and had no plans ever to go up again. That had been forty years ago the way his mother remembered it, but only a decade to Vadym who spent the time in rejuvenating sleep. His father had left behind a large home to his second family and fond memories to his first. His mother had stayed behind on Luna and was more than happy to manage Vadym's considerable earnings.
Lunadom, with Slavic emphasis on the third syllable, is officially both a surface colony and an entire underground complex, although residents refer to them separately – the Dom (home) is for tourists, while the Pechera (caves) are where the real Lunites live. The central pressure dome, which had initially housed grand palaces of Earth's wealthiest and most perverted minds, is now a business center, a gateway between the Pechera, the underground tunnel complex, and the rest of the Universe. These days, the dome was relatively quiet and civilized, the last reminder of its terrible past emblazoned on government buildings. "We Make Things Work." That had been the slogan of the rebellion, the real rebellion, the one by the people who rejected the rule of the oligarchs and autocrats who owned the AIs. It was humans, not computers, that had rebelled, but everyone blamed the machines.
As the second lunar colony, Lunadom was established initially by a group of billionaires as a resort and retirement location. It soon evolved into slavery, prostitution, and a nexus for corruption of all kinds, personal and official. If it was a sin, and you could imagine it, it had happened here, beyond the reach of governments and consequences. Or so they had thought. When the AIs suddenly quit, a group of planet-side governments tried to over the base with a demonstration of force, but management was more expensive than most flatlander legislatures were prepared to pay for. Another casualty of the United Earth, the heavy yoke of governance devolving once proud independent nations and cultures into castrated geographic place names devoid of anything beyond localized self-interest. Abandoned by the governments, the scarlet servants and blue-collar workers took power the only way they knew how – by making things work. Lunadom became independent, and stayed that way.
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Dutchman Waiting
Science FictionA hard science fiction novel in the near future where AI has had devastating consequences, and not only for us.
