Jenny's Portfolio
Sci-Fi Sample
Digital Ruins
Day One:
I’ll spare this journal from all the scientific jargon. Honestly, I don’t understand the half of it, and I and the stuff I do understand I have no need nor desire to record. Don’t go telling Dr. Brown though. I think she’s onto me. I’m sure she knows the merit in bull shitting job interviews. We all have PHD’s in a subject related to this expedition. I studied the rise and fall of cultures, so its not like I need to know the ins and outs of Plant Biology to be here. We have a specialist for that: Dr. Brown. But they wanted everyone on this expedition to know a bit of everything, which I don’t. So I gave my resumé a bit of a remodel and sent in the application. They hired me, no interview, no call, and a few weeks later I got my transport ticket in the mail. The team was dropped off a few miles from the trees, and we started on foot. No one had heard of me. That’s fine. It's not like I had heard of any of them, no matter how highly regarded they claimed to be; they were all strangers.
We reached the trees in the late afternoon. Three o’clock maybe. The landscape was all mixed up. It was as if a jungle, a forest and a plain had all collided outside the city. The trees were all wrapped in thick strangling vines and their roots were coiled and tumbled around large boulders. The ground beneath us was a tangled mass of vines, loose grass and moss. Continental drift gone wrong. Though as I’m constantly being reminded by Dr. Brown “that's not continental drift.” She’s been testing me today. Running off to look at some misshapen leaf, making us all stop so she can collect a specimen. She’s all excited because she's never seen anything like it. She said it was important work and that if we wanted to know anything about the society that once existed here, we had to know what their environment consisted of. I don’t care what’s living here now, I just want to get to what the others left behind. All this junk out here buried the trees, its just leftovers, rotting carcasses, trash no one wanted. I want to get to the real pieces of this society. But Dr. Brown will never be convinced botany is not the key to everything. So we spent hours wandering through the trees, collecting bark and twigs, things that we’d be better off using as kindling. Then we wasted more time collecting kindling and wood and building a fire. I’m itching to leave but no one wanted to continue in the dark, but me. We heard strange noises in the night, we heard strange noises in the day. But the team only seemed to notice them once the light faded. Cowards. If they were afraid of a little adventure, why did they apply for this mission? Besides, is it not better to keep moving if you are being followed?
Day 2:
We woke up too early. I felt behind my own thought process all morning. But Dr. Glassen wanted to get an early start, so we left camp at first light. The city follows the usual layout, with the poorer districts trampled and forgotten in the outskirts and the business buildings nestled miles away in the center. Every building in this zone is made of sheets of metal, tacked together, and barely standing. Some of the walls had toppled over, their guts pulled out by looters or explorers who got here before us. There is nothing inside the structures but an occasional upturned piece of furniture and the dust that crouches in every corner – oh—and the tanks. Each house has one. A large tank, bubbling and smoking against a wall. That and the occasional sound of footsteps.
Dr. Glassen noted that there wasn’t any rust on the buildings. He had a point, there wasn’t, just dust and dirt. The air was damp too. He spent a while examining the metal. He said the metal had to have a different chemical makeup than the ones at home. He said we could use it to better our buildings if he could figure out the composition of the material. This sheet metal is child's play if you ask me. The lower class always gets the scraps. The real tech is in the heart of the city, in the business district, and I can’t take these delays much longer. I was hoping my team would think more like me. I was hoping my team wouldn’t waste so much time with these pointless specimens. Don’t they know there’s always better things ahead? They will want to make camp here I bet. I doubt Dr. Glassen will quit with the metal anytime soon.
There are fireplaces inside some of the abandoned buildings. We found one still spitting. Which I suppose means we are not alone. I think the rest of the team might be losing their nerve. I’ve never seen Dr. Thorn quiver so much. The noises are getting louder too. I thought scientists would be curious. I thought we would head off after the noises with flashlights and sample containers. But the team agreed we ought to get out of the rain and the shadows. I think we are hiding. If whatever is out there had wanted us dead, it would have attacked by now. If it was protecting something, it would have stopped us. Perhaps it doesn’t know we are here, or maybe it knows we are stronger.
Day 3
There is a huge tank in here. Thats it. We are in a building at the edge of the business zone. I think its a museum. It is a huge tank, with all these out of place artifacts jumbled at the bottom. Like they have been collecting pieces of other places, and chucking them in an aquarium. Some of it is smoking. Dissolving maybe. I’m not sure. All I know is that I don’t like it in here. I am usually so sure, and I have no idea what this place is. Dr. Roberts thinks the noises are coming from the tanks. That they all form some sort of communication network. That everything we have been hearing over the past few days originated here. That they were trying to communicate with us. Whatever was happening here, if anything was, is contained in the past. This place is empty. No one is communicating now.
I spent hours starting at the tank. Everyone else wanted to move on but damn them, it was my turn. I just wanted to know what it was. Now I am sure it's a museum. They use the tanks to preserve things. That’s why there is one in every house. Must be.
Tomorrow we are going to the real ruins. Tomorrow we will finally get some real answers. Tomorrow is where it will all begin.
Day 4
Dr. Glassen has never seen metal like this. The buildings are so light they could be made of folded paper yet they stand years after anyone has gone in. The trees are here too. I knew they would be. Dr. Brown says they grow taller and stronger than any she’s seen and live off barely any land or water. The city center hangs in an ominous pause. Everything feels new here, shining as if it's just been polished. The air is clean too, no dust, no rubble. And for once it’s silent. No noises, no bubbling tanks, no birds. Just silence. Like the world just stopped. And then it came. I’m not sure if we all knew where to go or if no one questioned following me. But it would have been a shame to shatter such a beautiful silence, so we all just walked toward it. The tall, black, gleaming building in the center of it all. They took a breath, and walked in. Then the noise came back. I could hear it the entire way back. Banging and tearing through my head. Thanking me. No need. Not yet.
I got back a few hours ago, I haven’t heard from my team. I doubt I ever will. I feel slightly responsible, but it’s not my fault they sent me in with such amateurs. I tried to pry them out of there. I told them the business zone was a bad idea. But they weren’t having it. They thought they were so smart and so brave. I wonder if they think anything now. I try not to feel too bad about leaving. I was prey who had been backed up against a wall too many times for too long. My instincts kicked in and I bolted. I don’t really remember getting out. But I know I went back to the tank on the way. Because I can still hear them now.