“Well, before humans evolved, there had been at least five mass extinction events in the history of our planet—events where a majority of species went extinct. These were due to megavolcanism, changing sea levels, asteroid impacts, and disease. Then humans came along, and a sixth mass extinction began to occur. Animals were overharvested for food. Their habitats were destroyed. Invasive species were introduced, both intentionally and inadvertently, and they killed off the native ones. Scientists in the late twentieth century stopped calling this the Sixth Extinction, but rather the Anthropocene Extinction, since humans were so clearly the cause. By then, humans were killing off anywhere from ten thousand to sixty thousand species a year. A year.
“The ancient extinction events had taken at least a million years to happen, often even longer. But this last one happened in only hundreds of years. There were some attempts to save bigger, iconic species whose appearance humans liked. Wolves, bears, giant tortoises . . . But their reintroduction attempts were largely unsuccessful, as the creatures were being brought back to fragmented and human-developed lands that could no longer sustain healthy populations. In other cases, there just weren’t enough individuals reintroduced to keep up a healthy group. Back then, people ignored the interrelation of everything, doing little to save the necessary pollinator species like bees and bats. They weren’t big, flashy, or cute, so they were left to die. Pesticides wreaked havoc on them.
“For the first time in the history of the planet, a single species was responsible for a mass extinction. And there weren’t enough people willing to stand up and fight for wildlife.
“Of course, without these creatures, the planet was really in trouble. All of them had fulfilled a vital role in a vast web, each one doing something to regulate the planet. Maybe you’ve heard that old saying about how a butterfly could flap its wings in the Rocky Mountains and cause a hurricane over the tropics? Everything’s connected in the natural world. Unsustainable development, endless pollution, a complete disregard for other species when money could be made . . . that’s all my species practiced.
“So the animals slipped away, with little thought given to their disappearance.” He looked into the camera for a long time, then gazed out at the broken landscape. He reached out and ended the recording.
H124 turned off the PRD. She wondered what it must have been like for people back then, as well as for the animals that once roamed this land. Looking east, she watched the sun peek above the distant hills. When it finally streamed in through the windows, she allowed her eyes to close.
H124 sat up, peering sleepily out of the window. Twilight’s glow faded in the west. Were those things back? It seemed like it was still too light out. She’d have to put her diurnal theory to a test. How long after sunset did she have before they came out? She kept her ears open. Then she heard something. Above the dull drumming of the rain droned some kind of engine way in the distance. She stared out. The sound shifted, and she looked the other way. Then it faded.
She pulled out her PRD, gaping at it. She’d been asleep for twelve hours. She’d been more exhausted than she thought.
Listening for a few more minutes, she waited for the sound to return, but it never did. She opened the back door and climbed out, stretching and yawning in the early evening hour. Another storm system was moving in. Lightning flashed, and she could smell the unmistakable scent of coming rain.
The sun had set, but the west still glowed gold and blue. She took some time to freshen up, always watchful for the prowlers. So far she’d only seen them well into darkness, so she felt a little at ease as she prepared for another long stint behind the wheel.
She climbed into the driver’s seat, started up the car, and drove toward the fading twilight. As the dark deepened in the sky, she glanced up through the windshield and slammed on the brakes. Something had filled the sky with light. Her mouth hung open as she gazed up at a myriad of glimmering lights arcing from one horizon to the other. In the middle of the sky, so many twinkling bright points were clustered that it looked like a giant, glowing cloud.
Suddenly heedless of the night prowlers, she got out of the car, still gazing upward. Were all of these things stars? She’d seen a couple from inside the atmospheric shield, but never more than one or two. The entire sky was filled with them! As she watched, a light streaked by overhead, then vanished. The more she stared, the more she could see colors there, red and blue and more. An especially bright one burned steadily near the horizon. It was magical.
Growing more aware of her surroundings, she felt the shadows growing closer and decided to return to the car. She drove on, still glancing up at every chance she got. As the night wore on, she grew familiar with the stars, their arrangement and brightness most of all. She made up shapes among them when she could actually see them. Most of the time clouds obscured her view. But when they were out, she knew she was alive.
Being out here was like being in a constant maelstrom. Weather ruled all. She could see why they’d built the atmospheric dome, but she wondered what it was like when weather wasn’t so violent, and people could walk about the earth with relative ease.
A storm blew in from the west. She drove along the
