.
The ocean lapped lazily beneath the barge, a quiet hum singing underneath its aging hull. The first rays of sunlight began to stretch over the horizon, illuminating the piles of rubbish in the soft blues of dawn. CORI scanned the data from their optical and audio sensors carefully as they came online, ignoring the blaring illumination of their battery indicator, and vaguely wondered if today they might encounter a bird, a spot of green, or at least something new to look at.
Gradually the sun’s rays glittered across the waves and CORI’s solar array, and they waited while electrons began to slowly filter into their neural network. Eventually, they turned to scan the piles of scrap tires, twisted metal, dead electronics, and plastics while cautiously testing their actuators. As the sun rose and their energy levels moved out of critical, they pushed themselves upright, ignoring the assortment of alarms flashing across their optical display. Weatherized or not, the crusts of salt and oxidation were beginning to take their toll. Still, there were tasks to be done before the heat of the day and the next storms.
CORI approached the side of the freighter and carefully peered into the waves. The usual detritus, decomposed seagrass, bleached shells, and dead coral floated by. The water seemed to be somehow both dull and slick, its surface mottled with layers of grease and oils, clumps of rot and debris interspersed with reflecting iridescent rainbows.
They had a memory file, safely buried beneath their standard survival programs, of a time when the sea had been bombarded by gulls and migrating birds, and the waves rich with the eyes and mouths of underwater creatures. That was when the ocean and the land had brimmed with life. Currently - based on the limited reach of their compromised sensors - they were surrounded by water largely devoid of it.
CORI sighed and made their way below deck, crawling around the piles of dilapidated cargo and trash. The daily storms had long ago teased apart any sense of order, and with no engine, CORI and the barge were left to the wind and waves.
Peeking into the shadows of the hull, CORI’s standard featureless face flexed a grimace as they took in the smaller bot, which had collapsed and folded in on itself after exhausting its energy reserves during the prior night’s storm. CORI lifted the pint-sized bot with sluggish arms, dragging it up the steps and gently unfolding it across a pile of plastic recyclables to expose its solar pack to the morning sun.
CORI sat and watched the empty ocean and the emptier sky while waiting, estimating probabilities, until the smaller bot’s eyes slowly twitched and swirled into a glowing expression of recognition.
“We survived?” the smaller bot asked, her childlike voice warbly as she clenched and unclenched a tiny fist in evaluation.
“Affirmative,” CORI nodded. “Surprisingly. My last wind measurements had gusts at 95 knots.”
“So not the worst storm?”
“We did not capsize.”
“Have you detected anything?”
CORI contemplated the question. “I have detected several things. The wind speed is 10 knots, the water temperature is 43.33 Celsius, the air temperature is—”
“Not that,” the smaller bot snapped in disappointment, waving her tiny fists around in circles and flexing her fan-like feet as she began to recharge.
CORI remained silent.
“I thought you said we were getting close?” she accused. “That there was dust in the collectors?”
“Unknown. The storm wiped away any data. I was in energy-saving mode, so I lack the astronomical data for accurate navigation.”
The smaller bot’s face took on a strange appearance, the folded hinge of her eyebrows raising and lowering in thought, her eyes swirling and glimmering in intensity. “You’re really bad at conversation,” she said.
CORI looked at her, puzzling her words and what purpose she may have served in the past. She was too small for most manual work, and had rudimentary subroutines unable to support any serious data analysis. Her face and eyes were wide, and she had the unusual feature of fine bright blue synthetic fibers that sprouted from the top of her blocky, oversized head and waved wildly around her silicone-softened features.
The little bot shoved herself to sitting, eyebrows approximating a scowl. “Do you think we will actually make it there?”
“Unknown. I can neither confirm nor deny we will make it there.”
At this the small bot lowered her head and stared at her legs – two short shanks, a faded hot pink, missing the proper joints for knees, as if her need to ambulate were an afterthought.
“But is it even real?” the small bot said, her voice hollow and distant.
“Unknown. I can neither confirm nor deny –“
“Never mind,” the little bot sighed and slammed her short legs against the pile beneath her, skittering plastic containers across the metal deck. Again CORI wondered where the bot had picked up her mannerisms.
“It was once real, or at least, once a real possibility,” CORI offered in conciliation.
“So there could still be a Center running out there? With energy? With others like us, or like them? Like before?”
“Not like before—before, there were energy outages. And there was talk the Centers would move to renewable energy. They had the technology – sand batteries and solar cells. Hydro. Wind. Thermal. Anything now would be decentralized. Less connected. Maybe not always online.” CORI paused. “Based on my memory, it seems they had the knowledge and knew the risks. It seems likely that some of them prepared.”
Here CORI grew silent, accessing other buried bits of memory. A single tree, growing on top of a rock in the midst of crumbling asphalt. The flash of an organic face and arms, freckled, reaching up to the sky. A grin, apparent even from behind a black scarf, the air smoky. Green and blue paint. A protest. A poster. KEEP HOPE ALIVE.
“Then why did they let it happen?” the little bot asked quietly as she stared across the waves.
CORI did not answer. They had more immediate problems. CORI knew what the little bot did not have the background data to know – if they continued much longer in the midst of the ocean on this heap of already scavenged trash, they would both become a pile of rusted parts. That is, if the ocean and its storms did not claim them first. But CORI did not share this information. The little bot already had enough strange moods.
CORI and the little bot sat quietly for a few more moments before rising for their daily chore. The sun continued its slow arc as they rummaged through the piles —shaking saltwater from containers, sifting molded cardboard, and ripping apart long-dead electronics. CORI watched the small bot dump a box of slim, oblong handhelds, a gleam in her eyes as she took in the tiny symbols of fruit embossed on their colorful cases. The gleam dimmed once she realized the internals were corroded.
Eventually, CORI’s internal display picked up on a series of unusual inputs, and they turned their optical sensors towards the northwest. On the distant horizon, small sunbursts of light flickered in and out like monotone fireworks. CORI tried to parse the data they were receiving, but their display was caked in salt and foam.
“LOOK! LOOK!” the little bot exclaimed, at a much higher volume than was required for a lifeless barge in the middle of a mostly-dead ocean with only two bots.
The horizon shifted as they drifted, the sleek edge of the ocean growing fuzzy as it danced with intermittent flashes of light. The sun was beating down over them, and CORI’s sensors were lighting up with temperature spikes.
“We don’t know what it is yet,” CORI said. “We should keep working.”
But the little bot, unable to stay assigned to her task, stamped around on her blocky shanks along the low wall of the barge, her blue synthetic fibers waving in the gathering wind.
“Is that it?” the little bot shrieked, practically jumping up and down.
CORI turned towards the horizon, focusing their optical display to max resolution. The ocean had swollen to cover much of the coast – further inland than any of them had anticipated. The weather patterns had become erratic, parts of the planet growing unusually cold while others became new heat extremes. And there was the endless array of storms and wind. Tipping points, CORI recalled. And with that, the resource wars, the chemicals, the collapse of grids, and species.
The ocean had swallowed a refinery, its landscape of former towers and columns long twisted by war and wind and waves. From the tangled wreckage hung bits of random metal flashing, like long-forgotten bits of glitter, swaying and reflecting, and among them, a large and ragged green flag, boasting a long-forgotten symbol of a circle and an hourglass.
“LOOK! LOOK!” The little bot continued to yell excitedly and turn in jerky circles, wasting energy in a way that made CORI want to grind gears.
“It’s only remnants,” CORI stated flatly. “It could have been there for ages. I don’t see any signs of –“
The little bot turned and stamped indignantly. Her eyes glimmered and glowered and swirled. Her message was clear.
CORI sent a quick refresh signal to their optical sensors. There were no detectable signs of life. But behind the towers the sun reflected on a distant hill, where a tiny row of skewed solar panels were upturned and sparkling through the ruin. If CORI had not looked closer, they might have missed them.
“It’s HOPE,” the little bot informed CORI loudly, raising her tiny fists to the sky. She twirled and emitted a jaunty sing-song melody that CORI didn’t recognize but didn’t object to.
CORI looked at the little dancing bot, the broken refinery, the distant field of light, and the dark rainbows still dancing in the ocean around them.
They were not entirely sure it was HOPE, or even if HOPE was able to be kept alive, but they admitted it was, at the very least, something new to look at.
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