Half Moon Village (5 minute read)
By the time they reached the half-moon village the sweat was pouring down Dante’s back like a river. The trees overhanging the road gave some shelter, but the beginning of summer’s deep humidity meant that even shade brought no relief.
The rising and falling of cicadas was almost a roar.
“Let’s see if any of those buildings have windows, we can set up an AC unit inside and cool off.”
The group led the horses over the broken asphalt and in to the abandoned village.
Hannah walked around the small room picking up trinkets and looking over the detritus of a life abandoned. There were no signs of what had happened to the owners. The small house was structurally sound and everything was tidy, but the dust lay thick on everything and it was clear no one had lived here for years.
“What happened to everyone?”
Jungwoo looked up from his minicomp, scrolling through feeds.
“It says here the last person living in the village moved to an assisted living center in the city. The deeds to the house were turned over to the government to pay for their care.”
“So no one owns the village at all?”
Jungwoo held up his screen.
“Those three houses at the edge of town have been turned in to storage units, we can’t touch them, but the rest is part of the resettlement order. Anyone who wants to make a go of living out here can try, with government permission.”
Dante entered the room carrying a couple of panniers from the horses. Hannah looked up.
“Who has a long tail?”
“What?”
She nodded to the open door and then at the AC box, wedged in to one of the smaller windows.
“Oh. Right.”
Jungwoo stood up and put on his sun hat.
“Let’s go. I want to look around the village and check the farm site before it gets dark.”
Dante closed the door and sat down.
“Enjoy yourselves. I’m going to rest here a while.”
Hannah and Jungwoo walked around the village. Some houses were little more than ruins. Others looked like they had been abandoned yesterday.
“Why did everyone leave? It’s such a beautiful place.” Hannah asked.
“No infrastructure. The nearest hospital is an hour’s drive away. The last school in the area closed down 15 years ago.”
“They could make their own hospital though couldn’t they, their own schools.”
Just like we’re hoping to do. She thought.
“That’s true. But these communities were mostly old people. It was difficult to find doctors and teachers who would want to come and live-“
Hannah grabbed his arm and pointed.
“What was that!”
The trees and bushes along the riverbank were rustling and shaking. The swishing and snapping sound that suddenly rose above the noise of cicadas was like a hundred pairs of scissors. The two young explorers turned and ran.
“Dante, there’s something out there! I don’t know what it was, but there were a lot of them.”
Dante looked up from his minicomp and unplugged the satellite connection.
“Hmm... We had better go and take a look.”
Jungwoo picked up a baseball bat that he’d found in the closet. Hannah touched his arm.
“Leave it brother, we don’t want to start any trouble before we’ve even moved in.”
Dante was older than the two others. His long brown hair and curly goatee beard marked his partial western heritage. The younger settlers were Korean or at least enough so that it wasn’t easy to see their roots. Hannah had the classic moon face and inky black hair pulled back in a pony tail. Jungwoo was stout and stocky. A comfortable military style buzz cut contrasted with his unfashionably large glasses.
“Oh my! Look at that!”
Hannah pointed to the road in front of the house. One of the horses was down and looked half eaten. Little cubes of digested techno-nutrients were scattered across the road. The other horse had a few rips in its canvas hide and the exposed plastic of its footpads was scuffed. It looked around nervously, the combination head and feeder hopper that sprouted from its neck swiveled quickly, keeping a 360 degree view of the village.
“Champion! Look at what they’ve done to him.”
Hannah knelt at the side of the disassembled horse and started pulling out processor packs.
“Looks like his personality stack is okay. We can print up some new parts and get him running again. But what did this?”
Jungwoo pointed to a bush near the side of the road. A robotic shape was trying to crawl away in to the underbrush.
“Grab it quick and let’s get some answers.”
Dante rushed forward, but at that moment, some self repair sequence finished executing in the damaged bot and it quickly scuttled away, down in to the nearly dry river bed. As it moved, its appearance shifted, the smart canvas still covering most of its body adapting to its surroundings to provide near perfect camouflage.
“Chestnut, after it!”
Hannah pulled out her minicomp and started sending data to the remaining horse.
As big as a draft horse, but half as heavy, Chestnut was actually a cargo and manufacturing drone. Build for exactly this kind of off road excursion, the drone kicked out and leapt over the short wall, down in to the gully and after the spider.
“Follow them, keep them in view.”
The three rushed alongside the river, their minicomps relaying target data to Chestnut, augmenting the cameras mounted on the drone and helping to defeat the smart canvas.
“It’s coming back this way!”
Hannah pointed to the edge of the riverbank where the spider was crawling quickly up and out. The bank was too steep for Chestnut here, so the drone’s Ai was skittering around looking for a better way up and out of the gulley.
Jungwoo ran forward and kicked the spider drone on to its side. Keeping well clear of the scissoring leg sections he tried to pick it up by the sensor package mounted on its back.
“Ow, stop moving.”
Suddenly the underbrush exploded as dozens more spiders erupted out on to the path and along the dry river bed. Chestnut went down under the swarm and they quickly converged on Hannah and Jungwoo.
“Just a minute! There, got it.”
Dante came trotting up, still working on his minicomp. The spider suddenly stopped moving and lie still in the center of the narrow road. The others were slowing and coming to a stop. Down in the gulley, Chestnut was getting back to its feet, stepping gingerly over the now frozen spider drones.
“Just as I thought, lazy work indeed. Someone needs a lesson in cyber security.”
Jungwoo and Dante picked up the dormant spider drone and started lugging it back to the house.
“I think we need to have a chat with their owners.”
Jungwoo removed his glasses and wiped dripping sweat his face, shifting the heavy weight of the drone to his other hand.
“Good idea. But let’s get this guy inside first and find out who we’re dealing with.”
It was night by the time they reached the other village higher on the mountain, but darkness couldn’t hide the splendor of it. Their vertical farm was already up and running and twinkling LEDs covered both the farm and houses. The light was enough to see the beautiful mosaics and murals that covered the buildings. It also illuminated a group of villagers huddled around a frozen spider bot.
“I think this is yours.”
Jungwoo and Dante placed the remains of the spider next to the village gate and waited for the owners to come and collect it.
“What’s going on?”
“Who are you?”
“Did you have anything to do with this?”
“What have you done with our drone?”
The small group started talking at once. Like Dante’s settlers they were a mix of Korean and immigrants, all young and healthy.
Dante looked over to Hannah, she was the “face” of their group. She was good with people and could manage to control her temper, unlike Dante or Jungwoo.
“We’re your new neighbors. I love what you’ve done with the place, look at that farm! It’s a masterpiece.”
The other group pushed forward their own negotiator. She looked like the oldest woman in the village, maybe early 30s.
“Thank you, but what’s going on? Why aren’t our drones working? Junsu can’t get them to reboot.”
“Sorry, but they were causing trouble. We had to interrupt your control for a while. You have to be more careful letting them roam around unsupervised. Someone could have got hurt.”
The woman turned defensive. Crossing her arms and furrowing her brow.
“Demands? What’s it going to cost us to get our drones running again?”
Hannah stepped back a little and opened her arms, spreading her empty hands.
“No demands, we just came to introduce ourselves. We’re going to be your new neighbors.”
She nodded at Dante, who did something with the minicomp. The drones all scrabbled to their feet, immediately running off to carry on with the tasks they had been set. Jungwoo went to the panniers on Chetnut’s back and brought down some bags of wild fruits and a few luxuries from the city. He handed them to the villagers, quietly dismissing their insistence that they couldn’t accept them.
“Neighbors is it? Nice to meet you. I’m Moon-Chan-hi. That’s Eun-ji...”
She introduced the others of her group and talked about a few more that were apparently out looking for the other bots.
“I’m sorry about the drones. Junsu isn’t supposed to let them outside the resettlement zone. Is this all of you? How many people are in your village?”
Dante gestured down the road at another group walking along with two more horses.
“There are ten of us for now, but more are coming. We’re looking to make a go of things and it would be good if we can work together with other villages in the area. These are very exciting times.”
Chan-hi smiled.
“Yes. Hard work, but exciting. Well, let me be the first to welcome our new neighbors to the mountain. We should have a party to celebrate. Eun-ji, bring out the rice wine we’ve been saving.”
Each of the new arrivals began to split off, talking with the villagers about different topics. Soon music and laughter rang out over the village and down the mountain; chasing away the ghosts of neglect and decline.
The rising and falling of cicadas was almost a roar.
“Let’s see if any of those buildings have windows, we can set up an AC unit inside and cool off.”
The group led the horses over the broken asphalt and in to the abandoned village.
“What happened to everyone?”
Jungwoo looked up from his minicomp, scrolling through feeds.
“It says here the last person living in the village moved to an assisted living center in the city. The deeds to the house were turned over to the government to pay for their care.”
“So no one owns the village at all?”
Jungwoo held up his screen.
“Those three houses at the edge of town have been turned in to storage units, we can’t touch them, but the rest is part of the resettlement order. Anyone who wants to make a go of living out here can try, with government permission.”
Dante entered the room carrying a couple of panniers from the horses. Hannah looked up.
“Who has a long tail?”
“What?”
She nodded to the open door and then at the AC box, wedged in to one of the smaller windows.
“Oh. Right.”
Jungwoo stood up and put on his sun hat.
“Let’s go. I want to look around the village and check the farm site before it gets dark.”
Dante closed the door and sat down.
“Enjoy yourselves. I’m going to rest here a while.”
“Why did everyone leave? It’s such a beautiful place.” Hannah asked.
“No infrastructure. The nearest hospital is an hour’s drive away. The last school in the area closed down 15 years ago.”
“They could make their own hospital though couldn’t they, their own schools.”
Just like we’re hoping to do. She thought.
“That’s true. But these communities were mostly old people. It was difficult to find doctors and teachers who would want to come and live-“
Hannah grabbed his arm and pointed.
“What was that!”
The trees and bushes along the riverbank were rustling and shaking. The swishing and snapping sound that suddenly rose above the noise of cicadas was like a hundred pairs of scissors. The two young explorers turned and ran.
“Dante, there’s something out there! I don’t know what it was, but there were a lot of them.”
Dante looked up from his minicomp and unplugged the satellite connection.
“Hmm... We had better go and take a look.”
Jungwoo picked up a baseball bat that he’d found in the closet. Hannah touched his arm.
“Leave it brother, we don’t want to start any trouble before we’ve even moved in.”
“Oh my! Look at that!”
Hannah pointed to the road in front of the house. One of the horses was down and looked half eaten. Little cubes of digested techno-nutrients were scattered across the road. The other horse had a few rips in its canvas hide and the exposed plastic of its footpads was scuffed. It looked around nervously, the combination head and feeder hopper that sprouted from its neck swiveled quickly, keeping a 360 degree view of the village.
“Champion! Look at what they’ve done to him.”
Hannah knelt at the side of the disassembled horse and started pulling out processor packs.
“Looks like his personality stack is okay. We can print up some new parts and get him running again. But what did this?”
Jungwoo pointed to a bush near the side of the road. A robotic shape was trying to crawl away in to the underbrush.
“Grab it quick and let’s get some answers.”
Dante rushed forward, but at that moment, some self repair sequence finished executing in the damaged bot and it quickly scuttled away, down in to the nearly dry river bed. As it moved, its appearance shifted, the smart canvas still covering most of its body adapting to its surroundings to provide near perfect camouflage.
“Chestnut, after it!”
Hannah pulled out her minicomp and started sending data to the remaining horse.
As big as a draft horse, but half as heavy, Chestnut was actually a cargo and manufacturing drone. Build for exactly this kind of off road excursion, the drone kicked out and leapt over the short wall, down in to the gully and after the spider.
“Follow them, keep them in view.”
The three rushed alongside the river, their minicomps relaying target data to Chestnut, augmenting the cameras mounted on the drone and helping to defeat the smart canvas.
“It’s coming back this way!”
Hannah pointed to the edge of the riverbank where the spider was crawling quickly up and out. The bank was too steep for Chestnut here, so the drone’s Ai was skittering around looking for a better way up and out of the gulley.
Jungwoo ran forward and kicked the spider drone on to its side. Keeping well clear of the scissoring leg sections he tried to pick it up by the sensor package mounted on its back.
“Ow, stop moving.”
Suddenly the underbrush exploded as dozens more spiders erupted out on to the path and along the dry river bed. Chestnut went down under the swarm and they quickly converged on Hannah and Jungwoo.
Dante came trotting up, still working on his minicomp. The spider suddenly stopped moving and lie still in the center of the narrow road. The others were slowing and coming to a stop. Down in the gulley, Chestnut was getting back to its feet, stepping gingerly over the now frozen spider drones.
“Just as I thought, lazy work indeed. Someone needs a lesson in cyber security.”
Jungwoo and Dante picked up the dormant spider drone and started lugging it back to the house.
“I think we need to have a chat with their owners.”
Jungwoo removed his glasses and wiped dripping sweat his face, shifting the heavy weight of the drone to his other hand.
“Good idea. But let’s get this guy inside first and find out who we’re dealing with.”
“I think this is yours.”
Jungwoo and Dante placed the remains of the spider next to the village gate and waited for the owners to come and collect it.
“What’s going on?”
“Who are you?”
“Did you have anything to do with this?”
“What have you done with our drone?”
The small group started talking at once. Like Dante’s settlers they were a mix of Korean and immigrants, all young and healthy.
Dante looked over to Hannah, she was the “face” of their group. She was good with people and could manage to control her temper, unlike Dante or Jungwoo.
“We’re your new neighbors. I love what you’ve done with the place, look at that farm! It’s a masterpiece.”
The other group pushed forward their own negotiator. She looked like the oldest woman in the village, maybe early 30s.
“Thank you, but what’s going on? Why aren’t our drones working? Junsu can’t get them to reboot.”
“Sorry, but they were causing trouble. We had to interrupt your control for a while. You have to be more careful letting them roam around unsupervised. Someone could have got hurt.”
The woman turned defensive. Crossing her arms and furrowing her brow.
“Demands? What’s it going to cost us to get our drones running again?”
Hannah stepped back a little and opened her arms, spreading her empty hands.
“No demands, we just came to introduce ourselves. We’re going to be your new neighbors.”
She nodded at Dante, who did something with the minicomp. The drones all scrabbled to their feet, immediately running off to carry on with the tasks they had been set. Jungwoo went to the panniers on Chetnut’s back and brought down some bags of wild fruits and a few luxuries from the city. He handed them to the villagers, quietly dismissing their insistence that they couldn’t accept them.
“Neighbors is it? Nice to meet you. I’m Moon-Chan-hi. That’s Eun-ji...”
She introduced the others of her group and talked about a few more that were apparently out looking for the other bots.
“I’m sorry about the drones. Junsu isn’t supposed to let them outside the resettlement zone. Is this all of you? How many people are in your village?”
Dante gestured down the road at another group walking along with two more horses.
“There are ten of us for now, but more are coming. We’re looking to make a go of things and it would be good if we can work together with other villages in the area. These are very exciting times.”
Chan-hi smiled.
“Yes. Hard work, but exciting. Well, let me be the first to welcome our new neighbors to the mountain. We should have a party to celebrate. Eun-ji, bring out the rice wine we’ve been saving.”
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