EVAC//PLUS//3064
It is the deep part of the night, when all whisps of sunset glow have faded from the sky and creatures with bulbous eyes and sensitive ears leave their hidey-holes to spend a few hours trying to eat each other.
Ember6 is nestled among thin branches at the top of the tallest tree in its sector, cameras cycling between night vision and infra-red, scanning the forest canopy for anomalies. The little robot is diligent, but its old batteries can no longer store enough solar charge for a full night’s vigil. An internal alarm chimes, seven milliseconds earlier than it did the night before, telling Ember6 to return to earth before power fails and it falls out of the tree.
As the robot climbs down the ancient trunk, the critical systems portion of its brain flags a negative value change to the Predicted Possible Charge Cycles count. Ember6 acknowledges the new //PPCS// value with a robotic wince, and hustles toward the solar array that will charge its batteries when the sun comes up. Safely connected, Ember6 uses the last of its juice to broadcast a forlorn All Stations Assist Respond //ASAR// ping, then passes into the void listening to the static hiss of a dead network. Above, the giant sequoia’s branches creak and sway.
EVAC//PLUS//3065
Eighteen hours later and fully charged, Ember6 takes its station again. Shortly after midnight it senses the faint subsonic rumble of distant thunder and turns its cameras East to see lightning illuminate the violet guts of a towering cumulonimbus cloud. It looks like neurons firing inside a giant brain.
Firewatch was once an important part of the Embers’ job, but now there is no-one to call if lightning strikes, and no Canadair aircraft will appear on the horizon to skim the treetops and dump water to douse the flames. Ember6 knows this is not its fault, and there is nothing to be done about it, but thunderstorms make the robot feel uncomfortable and powerless all the same. It is not in its programming to let the forest fend for itself.
The storm rumbles on, filling the atmosphere with electromagnetic energy, effectively blinding Ember6 to everything beyond the visual range of its cameras. And so the blinding blue-white flash and supersonic WHAP of a re-entry module streaking overhead takes the little robot completely by surprise. A human would have been shocked out of the tree, but the autonomous, purely digital part of Ember6’s mind recognises what is happening and begins to respond before the mimetic module has time to form a thought. But when that thought arrives, it resolves itself into nine words.
It’s happening. After all this time, it’s actually happening.