Also thx to @lexiklecksi for pushing me to write more for the Tekbury
The Tekbury pt.2
Recently we had found new ruins. An old electrical storage device there pointed us towards a structure we hadn’t found yet. From what the stored data could tell us the structure seemed to be far underground. To deep for any of our sensor devices. The entrance hidden behind a very deep natural cave, that we hadn’t looked into so far as it seemed to lead nowhere.
Our collective mind decided to send a group of three down there. It took us about three days to get to the point where the structures entry point should be at. We saw nothing but stone. Had our ancestors lied? Was it what they called a joke? Our collective mind decided that the three down in the cave stay another day while the scientific part tries to encode more of the storage device.
It took most of that day, but eventually we found out, that the Tekbury of old used a so called ‘material projector’ to recreate the stone. Only way to find out which side was fake, was to point a laser pointer against it, as that is the sign for the machine to turn off.
We got into the structure and we’re shocked by what we saw. After we passed the entry checkpoint, which wasn’t guarded by anyone or anything, we suddenly stood in a large open area that looked exactly like one of the cities they must have had. The buildings were still standing, even the fake sky above the big city was still working.
There wasn’t a thing that looked destroyed or even aged. There were a few fully stocked supermarkets, but we didn’t see anyone. Not even a single sign of live. It was eerie, almost creepy, to be in such a large lifeless city. We found some pictures depicting families that had lived down here. Still not a singular soul.
Our collective mind was starting to get a bit emotional. It quickly made the decision to get those three out of there and send a full expedition down together with most of the historical part. We didn’t find a lot of new informations. The most important was that we found out why there was noone down there.
The families in the pictures had been actors, meant to lure in the wealthy and powerful just so the owner could profit of the societal decline. In the end that had happened faster than anyone expected, but also so slow noone noticed it. So none of the ones that paid to be safe down here had the time to get here.
It still was a great structure and it could still serve the purpose of being a city. We decided to settle ourselves in the city. Just in case we above ground would have to fight, our collective mind would be safe for an eternity and beyond.
Also to honor those that created us, in the silent hope, that we’d be better. We honor, by living, by filling this city with laughter and banter, hope and pride.
We will survive.
Wooow that’s so cool! I love how the robots find this lost city and realize that it was just used as a trap to lure others in and exploit them. It also makes me wonder how much time passed between the abandonment of that big city and the collective mind finding it (like is the supermarket still stocked with fresh food). In case you want to write more about this story, you might need to figure out a timeline what happened before the rise and fall of the Tekbury and the collective mind.
