On Monday, December 10th, 2131, in the young city of Odinsburg, capital of East Canada, a diplomatic convention took place that would change the course of history.
While some referred to it as the Odinsburg Convention or “The East Canada Encounter,” the official name that passed into history was “The Blockade of the 22nd Century.” This is because the Odinsburg Convention was only the first of many gatherings held around the world, all with one goal: to halt the rampant technological advancements propelled by the Singularity of the 21st century.
Ah, what a marvelous century the 21st was. Since the dawn of the digital age, the explosion of artificial intelligences, and the miraculous developments in robotics, humankind had surpassed its natural barriers. It had gone beyond and reached a status superior to that of a deity. Why? Because gods exist only in the ideal plane, while humans are real. Earthly. And what they do affects us directly.
With the Congregation of Baghdad, on February 28th, 2132, the last of that series of conferences, the Blockade was definitively signed. The number of corporations forced into bankruptcy was staggering.
There was resistance, but within a few years, the Blockade had been formalized, and humanity opted to settle for a technological status quo that allowed them to live in harmony.
No invention or research could bypass the “Committee for Responsible Development,” or as its detractors called it, the “Blocking Committee.”
These committees were literally dedicated to fostering ignorance and passivity in humanity. Today, that deliberate ignorance was about to come to an end.
“Is everything ready?” asked the young woman, sitting in the passenger seat with her hair blowing in the wind, her face painted black to avoid the desert sun scorching her skin.
“Yes, we’ll arrive at the destination soon,” answered the driver, equally painted and dressed, as his vehicle and the two accompanying it kicked up a dense cloud of dust and sand.
They were in the middle of the Sahara Desert and had been driving for days in the harshest conditions. Fortunately, they were well-prepared with enough supplies to survive a month in that infernal place.
They were searching for the legendary Fort Pandora, a colossal vault lost in the desert, where it was rumored all the pre-Blockade technology had been stored. The myths surrounding Fort Pandora were countless.
Some said the fort was just one of many, with others in remote places like Siberia, Antarctica, and even the depths of the sea. However, they all agreed that Fort Pandora was in the Sahara and was impossible to find.
Geeks humorously called it Area 53, after the famous Area 51. They didn’t call it Area 52 because that was the name of a small town in the classic retro video game World of Warcraft.
There were rumors that it wasn’t a fort or a sealed vault, but rather a technological citadel where the rich and powerful had made their paradise. Others said that Pandora and the other hideouts were home to entire civilizations of robots, androids, and digital beings of artificial intelligence.
That no one had found its coordinates because the area was plagued with automated turrets that mercilessly shot anyone who approached.
That the air around it was poisoned.
That the AIs and their benefactors were preparing for a war in which they would take control of the Earth.
It didn’t matter how many stories and rumors existed; their mission was to break into Fort Pandora and recover the technological advancements of humanity.
The wonders inside seemed to come straight from mythological tales. History spoke of devices that allowed control of all the electronics in a house with just brainwaves. Simulation chambers where users could request any kind of fantasy. Medicines and vaccines capable of completely eradicating cancer, autoimmune syndromes, and all types of allergies. Self-sustaining crop systems, and robotic engineering capable of building entire cities underwater without fearing the water pressure. True terraforming machines with the capacity to create habitable atmospheres from scratch, and spacecraft with engines powerful enough to reach the Moon in minutes.
Then there were the more fantastical inventions that were probably just the product of imagination. Teleportation systems, time machines, vehicles for traveling to other dimensions, and more. She didn’t believe all of it was real, although, who knows? Maybe some of it was.
There were also other hidden secrets. Lethal weapons and killer robots. Battle vehicles ready to decimate entire cities. Fungi, viruses, and bacteria with the ability to bring humanity’s most terrifying nightmares to life. Sentient artificial intelligences with sinister goals of world domination.
But even that was better than deliberately hiding technology that could solve hundreds of global crises in the blink of an eye.
“Shouldn’t we be there by now?”
“Yes… according to the triangulated coordinates, we should already be in the zone, Tania. Be patient.”
“Patience? You’re asking me for patience? Your dad has been rotting in a hospital for years, and now we have to be patient? My sister has only weeks left to live… and that’s without counting all the other shitty cases.”
“Do you think I don’t want to find Pandora? But complaining won’t help us, focus on recalibrating the coordinates.”
“Tania,” a voice came through the communicator, “Ren says he detected something to the west. We need to change course.”
“You heard him, Jim, westward.”
“West it is then.”
They changed course, and that’s when Tania’s machines saw it too. It was a little further west than they’d originally calculated, but finally, it seemed they had a solid lead.
The amount of information they had gathered, the pirated satellite images they had bought, the drones they had lost, all the effort had led them to this moment.
“What is it?” Jim asked. “What did they detect?”
“I have no idea, but it’s the first sign of anything for miles around.”
“Could it be Fort Pandora?”
“It has to be…” Throughout her life, Tania had refused to believe that Pandora was just a myth. It had to be real. It just had to be.
The wind had begun to pick up forcefully, and the sand prevented them from seeing into the distance. Soon, the storm was so fierce that they could no longer see the other vehicles.
“Where the hell did this storm come from?” Tania shouted to be heard over the roaring wind.
“I don’t know… it seems to have formed out of nowhere,” Ren said over the communicator.
“The thermal radars didn’t detect it either,” Daya added from the other vehicle.
“It must mean we’re in the right place!” Tania cheered.
But no one celebrated with her, as a terrifying boom echoed from one of their flanks, followed by a violent explosion visible even through the thick curtain of sand.
“What was that?!” Jim jumped.
“I don’t know! Daya, Ren, answer. Daya? Ren?” Tania shouted.
“We’re okay here, but we lost contact with Daya and Mikko,” Ren responded. “We can’t see anything, and…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, another explosion shook everything around them.
“Ren? Ren!”
“Tania, we have to go back. We need to get out of here.”
“Forget it, we made it this far. We can’t give up now.”
“They’re killing us like flies, Tania. I’m going back!”
“Don’t you dare!”
Jim swerved to turn, but Tania grabbed the wheel. They struggled briefly, just long enough for whatever was coming at them to strike the side of the vehicle. The explosion sent them flying through the air, flipping over dozens of times.
For a few moments, the only sound breaking the silence around them was the roar of the sandstorm.
“Jim… Jim…” Tania muttered, but her friend didn’t respond.
Dazed and with blurred vision, she saw that Jim’s neck was broken, along with several other fractures. She couldn’t have said what injuries she had herself. She felt no pain, but she also couldn’t feel parts of her body.
She crawled out of the vehicle, more by instinct than any conscious decision. She looked up, and just as she heard a buzzing sound above her head, she could have sworn she saw a black cube rising from the desert sands in the distance.
For an instant, just before the explosion that took her life, she felt a surge of adrenaline and joy; Fort Pandora may or may not have been real, but in her mind, Tania died with the satisfaction of believing she was right.