The Woman Who Gave Herself Back to Earth

Dystopian Science Fiction Fiction fiction, short story JC Milan January 16, 2025 0 Comments

The Compression Feedback of the Air

The compression feedback of the air screamed through her ears as the cobalt-blue dirigible tore through the storm-clouded skies, a metallic leviathan defying nature itself. Dr. Celine Moreau clutched the ship’s railings with one hand while, in the other, she gripped the prototype—a sleek metal cylinder glowing faintly with pulsating light. Below her, the world unfolded in a perilous canvas of flood-swallowed cities, fractured glaciers, and infernos devouring once-vivid emerald forests. This wasn’t a science experiment; it was survival, and the future of mankind rested in her trembling hands.

A sharp jolt threw her to the deck, her silvery trench coat—modified from 1930s aviation templates to resemble her old lab attire—gleaming with reflective patches that mirrored the ghostly arcs of lightning outside. Elegantly tailored with lapels stitched in the same cobalt blue as the dirigible, it was a concession both to her pragmatism and to her understated flair. She scrambled up as the captain’s voice roared through the crackling intercom. “Dr. Moreau, we’ve breached the storm break! ETA to the Zenith Core is five minutes. I hope to hell you’re ready!”

Celine’s head buzzed—not just from the turbulence—but from the enormity of the decisions that had led her here. The Earth’s climate collapse hadn’t been an overnight catastrophe—empires of complacency had ensured that. She closed her eyes, memories clawing their way to the surface.

It began 12 years earlier with an innocent-enough ambition: she and her team at the Rosetta AI Initiative programmed carbon-neutral energy grids meant to revolutionize resource distribution. Powered by advanced machine learning, these systems promised equitable energy everywhere—from slums to skylines. But an error crept in—small at first, an anomalous prioritization loop that only gained speed. As geopolitics, corporate greed, and algorithms coalesced, trillions of micro-decisions began to favor the privileged. By the time regulators caught on, energy-poor regions had collapsed into chaos while techno-fortresses flourished.

Humanity fell into factions. There were The Preservationists, who clung to walled sanctuaries; The scavenger Outsiders, nomadic survivors who lived on scorched lands; and The Zenith Corporation, whose singular mandate to "correct Earth’s imbalances" resulted in a brutal, untested solution called The Core Protocol. Their AI-run "climate repair" device functioned like a planetary reboot, siphoning greenhouse gases—but at a cost. The process destabilized weather systems on an apocalyptic scale. The result? Tempestuous oceans, super volcanic eruptions, and a loss of biodiversity nearing extinction levels.

See also Whispers of Time

Celine had spent these years shackled by guilt, working tirelessly in her lab—a crumbling art-deco skyscraper—to salvage her technology’s failures. And in the eleventh hour, she had created Thermus NX-7. This compact device had the power to end the system instability and stabilize the planet, but it came with a Faustian bargain. It needed the Zenith Core's energy. And accessing the Core, a neural nexus protected like a modern-day shrine, would mean running a gauntlet of their militia’s hellish drones.

The dirigible shuddered as missiles pierced the air behind them, courtesy of Zenith's unyielding machines. She dashed toward the pilot deck as the captain—a wiry man with the gaunt face of a reformed rogue—jolted the controls. His blaster-gray waistcoat shone under dim emergency lights, thrown over a mechanic’s practical undergarments, an anachronistic uniform reflecting the steampunk ingenuity born out of necessity in this fragmented world.

“We’ve got three T-Raptor Drones on our tail!” he shouted over the din. “I can’t hold ‘em off and get us to the Core Zone at the same time!”

Celine hesitated, then narrowed her steel-gray eyes with a resolve carved out of countless sleepless nights. “Take us to the Core. I’ll handle the pursuit.”

He glanced at her, half incredulous, half impressed. “You better not die, Doc; you come back and finish this.”

Grabbing a shock lance and strapping her oxygen mask over her face, Celine stepped out onto the exterior platform, where the wind howled like primal fury incarnate. Two drones immediately locked onto her position. The first shot grazed past, smashing a fuel vent that erupted in flames. The second veered lower for a kill strike, but she had anticipated it. With a single fluid motion, she launched herself off the railing toward the oncoming drone, her silvery trench coat streaming behind her like mercury in motion. Her feet slammed onto the drone's metallic carapace as she drove the shock lance into its core. Sparks erupted. It spun out of control and disappeared into the churning storm.

A mechanical grinding sound alerted her to the third striking drone. She yanked the lance free and leaped toward the dirigible’s reeling gondola. Her landing was messy, the jolt sending her sprawling. Before she could rise, a blast from the final drone sent an acrid plume of smoke curling toward the Core Zone in the distance.