[A pale blue dot] by Samasora さまそら - Scarlet System

From the high resolution dot matrix display, we eagerly waited for a change of color. It’s a dark room full of tables and chairs centered around a large display output, it is as if we were watching a movie in a cinema but it isn’t, it’s more like an opera.

In a flash, the display changed its color from red to white where it slowly dimmed. One by one, each dot column started to be filled with a dark, almost black shade of blue occasionally with white dots splattered on the canvas.

And then, as the display started to be filled up- right in the end.

A singular light blue dot appears.

These are the images we received from our third Void Sailor as it passes through the ninth planet, a gentle reminder of how frail humanity truly is in the vast sea of cosmos. It has been quite a year since the last of our space probes had all left the earth's atmosphere. Powered by a solar sail, they are set adrift to the great void of space in search of a place to call home.

Though we may have reached utopia, humanity still strived to expand to the great unknown, out of curiosity, out of wonder and out of our desire to explore the entire universe, a deadly sin we've all been inheriting since the dawn of time.

Like a strawberry dripped in chocolate sauce, a mass of land acts as an establishment of the human in the northern part of the planet. At the heart of that supermassive continent, a large glass dome with a diameter of 11 kilometers are showered in snowflakes as the end of the year closes in. 

It's the earth's one and only energy faculty, consisting of two main sectors, distribution and production. Sourced from one output, the faculty distributed each and every nation on earth with clean energy.

Inside the faculty lies a box-shaped confinement in which it contains an unknown matter that are hidden from the public ears, it’s described as a source of an everlasting energy that has powered the whole world for the last hundred of decades called the Eternal Engine. It was this energy utopia that united the world, absent from any conflict, making it possible to create a sustainable civilization in the earth’s  age of 1987.

On the east side of the glass dome, located at the city of Manchester, a Festival of Eternity are being held. It is filled with technology powered by the fragments of the Eternal Engine that are extracted from the confinement, as well as a new scientific discovery being presented.

It is called Aluminium! A metal that can be used in many forms of application because of its lightweightness and how easy it is to form it into the shape we desired!-

The radio suddenly cuts off.

“Ah! You kidding!- is it because of the antenna or something-” the boy hastily picked up the radio and wiggled the antenna around with his right hand.

A yellow grainy surface stretches far as the eyes can see, it was swept away by the occasional wave of a blue liquid but it still remains. A bunch of wind turbines littered the seashores of Margo, a small fishing town made out of a bunch of scattered shipping containers that are located at the edge of the earth supercontinent.

“Runo!” a distant shouts rings his earlobe.

“Ah, it’s mom…” He turned his head to one of the containers and ran into it, leaving his radio behind. 

He opened the door and revealed a small dining room complete with a beef stew that was emitting steam on top of the dining table.

“There you are” said his mom while she was cleaning a plate with a sponge.

“Ehehe, is it breakfast time already?”

“Why, of course” The two then sit on the chair, followed by a minute of silence as they are busy digesting their food.

…

“...it has been a while right?” The boy stopped for a moment and scratched his head.

“...” she pauses.

“Well…he is not going to be around us anymore though.” she averts her face slowly.

“Eh? What do you mean?” he tilted his head.

“He’s dead.” she said with a straight face while looking down at her food.

“Oh…is that so…” he then takes a bite and continues eating.

“...” she looks at his son with a blank stare.

“And on that note, we’ll be going to Manchester tomorrow night-”

“No way! Really!?” he jumped out of his chair.

“...o…of course!” she faintly smiled.

“Are we going to the Zenith too!?”

“Well, we’ll try to.”

“Ahahahaha! Yes! You know how long I have been waiting for this mom!? As a future scientist there’s just no way I wouldn't go there!”

“Yeah…of course, that’s why I surprised you with this!”

“Awesome!!!” His childhood memories started to fade away, leaving behind a blurry vision until the fog started to clear up.

…why am I starting to remember that time again?

There is not a lot to talk about during this trip besides the fact that we are not able to get past the Antarctic sea of ice before, but apparently with this specific ship  I was onboard on was able to get through it.

This ship are powered by the Eternal Engine that are located on the lower deck which I currently have no access to yet. The icebreaker ships are what it’s called, are made of a thick steel painted in red and black, it’s a new innovation from Manchester and this is their first ever mission in ice breaking.

The reason I'm onboard the ship is the fact that one of my thesis was approved for further research, and that required me to investigate something taboo about our energy sources. Luckily, someone was crazy enough to fund me.

I was running through the box and found a sandy plastic bag containing something that I’m very familiar with. But before I could inspect it any further, someone knocked on my door.

“Yo, are you okay- oh, i’m sorry are you busy right now?” It was this blonde woman with green eyes wearing an orange jacket, Annie.

“Not quite, come on in”

“Appreciate it.” She was my professor during my time at Manchester University, i can say that we’re pretty close.

“You seemed to be very tired from all of that running!” she patted my shoulder while showing me a grin that I'm familiar with.

…is it because I haven't eaten yet or something?

“I guess so, I think I just dozed off too.”

“Aw, that’s too bad. So what do we have here?”

“The reason my thesis was accepted in the first place of course”

“Woah… there’s just no way- it really doesn’t turn on anymore! Hard to imagine that these are powered by the Eternal Engine for quite some time!” 

“Of course, I would have never thought that my dad would have given me something that was very significant at the time.”

“Be sure to keep it…alright?”

“Will do, he’s the reason i’m here anyway.”

“To continue your dad’s legacy isn’t it?”

…

“To be honest, i’m not quite sure whether it’s on my own or his behalf…I never have actually has a good nor bad relationship with him”

“...why is that?”

“You know… all he did was to send me a letter, toys, souvenir and this radio was the last thing he gave to me.”

“...”

“Well, looking back at you being able to get this far makes me actually think that he’s a great scientist.”

“It’s too bad that he never actually came home though.”

“...he never did?”

“Not even a call, the first and the last time i have ever seen him was when he’s on a casket”

“How does he look?”

“...he had a smile on his face”

At the time in Manchester, my mother and I didn't actually cry, not a single tear dropped. And then here, I found myself coincidentally taking the topic he’s researching…so out of curiosity and the fact that I can't let my mother do all the hard work to feed me from selling fishes- I have come a long way.

“Well, I guess he’s glad that the radio has reached you, that’s the reason you’re able to make your mom happy right?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, if it’s not for that radio you're just going to be a Zenith errand boy right?”

“...I guess so.”

As we were walking down the hallway to get to the ship deck, we were greeted by a whiteout when we exited the ship. There was nothing to see except a bunch of snow falling from the sky. It's not a snowstorm though, it’s just white as far as the eye can see. Led by the head explorer, we marched through the snow accompanied by a rover that emits light powered by the eternal engine to open up a path for us to walk on.

As I was gazing through the white nights, I was wondering how our species survives without the eternal engine. Sure, there have been many energy sources, if only there were enough diesel or oil in this world, we would be able to bring it here. But the more alarming thing is that I was not expecting my answer to be answered in a matter of seconds. 

The lights on the rover went out as a mysterious shockwave swept the entire electrical equipment off. And then there stood before us a dome structure similar to an Igloo. All of us froze as a wave of doubt started to fill the whole team, but we ultimately decided to not investigate further and set up a camp on the site.

Until there’s something that told me to gets inside by myself, not knowing what kind of danger is inside of the igloo-

I ran inside.

The next thing I know is that I found myself in a run down factory of some sort, almost all of the equipment, pipes- everything was corroded, it was nothing like our factory. I get up and walked around the factory looking around on every corner of the section until I discovered a door at the end of the factory.

I opened it without hesitation and there I found a lab far more advanced than us, almost all of the sensors and equipment are still active and  there’s this person who is just standing in front of a super large TV or some sort? The weird thing is that he’s touching and swiping the TV and it moved?

“Quite an airhead aren’t you?”

“...!”

“One of the scientist i supposed?”

“Ah…yeah…what is this place anyway?”

“...that’s like…really direct with no hesitation at all, what’s with the hurry?”

“...nothing much, i’m just curious…”

…

“Follow me for a second” he waved his arm and the TV he has been working on for a while disappeared out of thin air.

“You…are not surprised by this?”

“I don’t know…I guess I haven't eaten for a while.”

“Ah, you really are an airhead, no wonder the defense system are not activated when you came here. I guess there’s no harm in answering some of that curiosity”

“So like…”

“Hmm…?”

“What are the Eternal Engine truly is?”

“...”

“...you came all the way just to ask for that?”

“The thing is…if it’s supposed to be eternal, then why have mine run out of power?” I showed him the radio and the charred eternal engine from twenty years ago.

“...” He paused for a second.

“...well, that’s arguably the oldest model that i have ever seen, want me to recharge it?”

“Huh…? Is that possible?”

…

“So…you came all the way here just to ask what are the thing that has been powering our planet for a while?”

“That’s all.”

“...this guy, are you not scared of me? Or even being inside a building that can crumbled at any given time?”

“Why should i? As long as i got my answer i will gladly do it.”

“We humans never actually changed at all huh? Tell me, what makes you do all of the effort to get into this mess?”

“...My father's death are caused by the same expedition i was taken to now and I want to make my mom happy, so she doesn’t need to sell fish again because of his passing.”

“But still...just what makes her weep every night and then? Even though i have worked hard and all, but yesterday when i was about to leave her…she didn’t”

“Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because out of all the letter my dad sent to me, his last one told me to meet you if i want to found out about him, but first-”

“What is truly the essence of the Eternal Engine? I came from a poor country so i had no fucking idea, that’s why i was fascinated by it a long time ago. Until i found out they’re not even telling everyone that it was all just a black ball that vaporized water in a very efficient kind of way”

“Three words.”

Perfect Nuclear Fusion.

…

“...I…it’s basically a sun- you’re telling me that the sun also have the same reaction as this one!? And one of them just burns out where it should have taken millions of years!?!? How does it works!?-”

I hope you liked my last gift.

“...actually.”

“Why would he left me the radio?”

“...”

“He took a boat and started to row all the way to the mainland, it was his last request before he passed away because of the exhaustion”

“...He has no chance of telling everyone his research? And…chose me to do it instead…”

“...”

“He entrusted everything that he has done to me…”

“...If it hadn’t for him…We could have suffered and died out of poverty…?”

“...the world has continued to revolve around that.”

“Continuity.”

“For the last billion of years, before the Eternal Engine was created…the world went on war.”

“...never heard of that”

“Instead of focusing on developing a new energy sources, they started to compete against each other for territory and natural resources such as oil and gasses.”

“And by the time the war is over, the world had already been destroyed.”

“But if you do remember, the research are still under way.”

“...and”

“The Eternal Engine are the product of it”

“Well…that’s all, I'm glad that you’re able to- why are you crying?”

“...it’s nothing, i have just never thought of all this was his doing…all of that just to make me happy- yet he never told me about it.”

“...good for you.”

…

“Hey…”

“...?”

“Is he a good man?”

“...”

I bet that he will be ecstatic when he learns all of that! I’m just too old to process it you know?

“He is.’