Hurricane Astraeus

“At the start of the 22nd century, in the year 2100, humanity was devastated by a massive storm. Hurricane Astraeus formed in the Gulf of Mexico and grew to a size that no one had ever seen before. It forced its way up the eastern coast of Mexico and into the southeastern parts of the United States, but it didn’t stop there. It went on to devastate the entire eastern coastline of the United States before heading out into the Atlantic Ocean.”

A professor with matted brown hair and glasses traces a path across a large projection of the world map with a small digital pen.

“At first, many meteorologists thought Astraeus would die out as it crossed the ocean, since the conditions out there usually weren’t favorable for hurricanes. What they didn’t anticipate was that global warming had gotten bad enough for the storm to cross the entire ocean without slowing down. Astraeus tore through southern Europe and northern Africa, and somehow, it kept going east. It hit India, northern Malaysia, and Thailand, crawled up the eastern coast of China, and crossed South Korea and Japan before it finally died out in the Sea of Okhotsk.

“The storm was a cataclysmic disaster for humanity, and to this day, its exact death toll and the total cost of the damage are still unknown. The destruction was so overwhelming that the World Meteorological Organization officially changed the storm’s name from Kirin to Astraeus, after the Greek Titan of dusk, to show just how close humanity had come to its end because of a single storm.

“Astraeus was the wake-up call humanity needed to finally deal with global warming. Within a year, the best scientists and researchers from across the globe came together to form the organization we now know as New Genesis, with one goal: to make sure a catastrophe like that never happened again.”

The professor paused, and for a moment the lecture hall was quiet. Then a hand went up near the front.

“Has the Tropodome ever broken before?” a student asked.

“Ah, good question!” the professor said. “Yes, it has, but only in very small spots. Sometimes a drone stops working, or something flies higher than it’s supposed to. When that happens, the reserve drones over the oceans come in and fill the hole, usually within an hour or two. Most people never even notice.

“As for a bigger hole, we don’t actually know what would happen, since there’s never been one. That’s why anything that can fly high enough to make one is banned, including rockets.”

Nobody knows, because nobody’s ever tried, Celia thought, resting her chin on her hand.

Suddenly, the sounds of zippers, laptops, and drones filled the room as the professor asked, “What time is it? Can someone check?”

“16:40, sir,” a student said.

“Great! Looks like we finished right on time! I’ll let you all leave five minutes early, and we’ll go over the founding of New Genesis in detail on Wednesday. Oh! And don’t forget, you have a quiz next Monday! Remember! Quiz next Monday!!!” the professor shouted as the students filed out of the lecture hall.

Celia let out a huge sigh of relief. The most boring class of the semester was finally over. On the other hand, she still had a big project to work on, and now there was a quiz next week too.

What if it asks us what the hurricane’s original name was? she thought as she headed back toward the School of Engineering. That definitely needs to be memorized! And what about the sea it died in? Ohtosk? Ohkots? Where does that name even come from?!

Seeing her worried face, Tabby tried to calm her down. “There’s no point in trying to memorize everything for a quiz that’s a week away. Let’s focus on what’s in front of us first, shall we?”

She gave him a look that said, Well gee, it’s not like the thing in front of me is a stupid project that’s also due next week, but she knew he was right. She was never good at remembering things she didn’t care about anyway. History was important, sure, but she had bigger things to worry about.

Inside the School of Engineering, Celia took the elevator up to the 31st floor and headed to the workshop assigned to her class. Every engineering student was assigned a specific workshop and a three-hour time slot to work on their projects. If they needed more time, they had to request an extra slot online or finish the work at home.

The equipment in each workshop depended on the major it was built for. Since Celia was a General Robotics Engineer, her workshop had 3D scanners, printers, CAD programs, metal synthesizers that recycled scrap into usable metal, a big tool rack at every workbench, and a small arena in the middle of the room for testing designs.

The room was as loud as ever when she walked in. Students were already hard at work, and the whole place was full of the sounds of screws being drilled in, wrenches turning, gears clicking, and metal being smacked into shape. Robots of every kind moved around the room. Some rolled around on wheels while others flew through the air, or wobbled jankily on makeshift limbs.

Celia quickly adjusted her Neurolink to dampen the noise so as to not go deaf. Then, she peeked over at the arena to see what was being tested. A small, white, ball-shaped robot zipped around the tiny walls while a boy with dark skin tested its brakes. On the other side, a blonde girl was flying a butterfly-like drone, trying to get the hang of controlling four separate wings at once.

Celia headed to her usual station while Tabby floated off to a nearby window to recharge in the sunlight. Just as she started setting up, she noticed that the boy next to her was working on a prosthetic arm too.

Wow, she thought, eyeing his model. That guy’s really got the hang of it, huh?

His arm looked almost complete. Metal plates already covered the shoulder and upper arm, with a few wires and gears poking out here and there. He was working on the hand now, fitting small pieces of metal over the wiring to give it a nice, smooth surface to grip with.

It was here however, that when the boy gave the hand a gentle squeeze to test the flexibility of the fingers, the metal plating of the forearm splintered apart and caused some of the wiring to snap. The boy froze for a few good seconds before pressing his against his head.

Celia’s expression winced up as if she had just taken a bite out of a lemon, her face contorting with silent empathy as she understood his pain.

Let’s hope mine doesn’t go like that, she thought, quietly turning away and pretending she hadn’t seen anything. First things first. I need to plan out what the arm should look like.

She walked over to one of the computers with the CAD program and turned it on, and a 3D holographic interface lit up in front of her. One side of the screen held a bar of common materials like metals and plastics, and the other side held a bar of common parts like gears and wires. She could drag anything onto the 3D platform and shape or resize it with her fingers. The program didn’t follow the laws of physics, though, so anything designed in it was mostly theoretical. Actually building it in real life was the hard part.

Celia got to work. She dragged pieces onto the platform and molded them into shape, linking gears and small metal rods together to make an elbow. Then she strung together tiny electroactive tubes that contracted and bent to mimic muscle fibers, and covered everything with a few metal plates. When she was done, she took a step back and looked at her design proudly.

Wait a minute… she thought. Now that I think about it… this looks very similar to the other guy’s design.

She glanced over at the boy, who was now slumped in his chair, swinging his stringy, broken creation around like a toy.

“Nice design,” he said, noticing her gaze. “I had a similar idea, but as you can see…” He flopped the arm up and down in front of her. “It’s not working out so well for me.”

He let out a small chuckle, then sighed and stuffed the arm into his backpack. “Welp, I’ve got to get to my next class. Good luck with yours. Hopefully it holds up better than mine did.”

Celia stood there, dumbfounded that she had made the exact same mistakes as him without even realizing it.

Oh no. It’s happening, isn’t it? she thought, her mind racing. This thing is going to fail and break apart just like that guy’s isn’t it? And then I’m going to spend hours trying to work a solution to the problem, but I’m not going to be able to figure it out in time, because I ended up procrastinating on this project until the last two weeks, and then I’m gonna fail because this project is worth 20% of the overall grade, and the best thing I can show for it is a pile of wires and metal, which then leads to me failing the class, and I have to retake it all over again next semester and then I’m going to graduate late and then—

“Celia? Celia! Calm down!” Tabby shouted, cutting her off. “I have detected abnormal heart rate readings from you. Are you alright?”

Celia snapped back to reality. Tabby had left his spot by the window and was floating around her with a worried expression on his digital screen.

“Yeah…” she murmured. “Thanks, Tabby.”

She slumped down into a nearby chair. Now what?