Fall of Venus

“Start journal. Assigned parent #36,098,234,520 left me a message today. Humanity has killed off another planet and we’re moving again. I hate it. Months of risking our lives out in space. I can’t take another trip to another planet. Venus is fine and I’m staying here on Cloud City. Mars was fine before we blew it up. I never knew Earth, but I bet it was fine too before it overheated.”

Killian kicked his robotic hover-dog. It sprung to life, out of sleep mode, fake-barking, and looking to play. “Go chase the cat.” A smaller shiny toy went scurrying across the floor of Killian’s apartment in the clouds above the toxic acid haze of Venus.

“How can I get out of this?” Killian paced. He was 100 years old, but still very able. Compared to his assigned parent though, he was yet a child. This made it difficult to escape. Assigned parent #36,098,234,520 was 998 years old, and every year she’s learned a new trick.  

Putting on his augmented reality goggles he took a seat on his couch. “YouTube, search for ‘Last occupants of Mars.’” Killian spoke as voice control to his video system, and an app expanded across his vision. Scrolling the search results, a 45-minute video caught his. “Skip five minutes,” Killian said to bypass the intro. “Skip 10 minutes,” bypassing life on Mars in the final days before its doom.  

In fast forward, skipping minutes at a time, Killian relived his life on the Red Planet in his mind. Elon Musk’s boring company made tunnels for the billion inhabitants. Everything was beautiful underground. It rivaled Tolkien’s mines of Moriah. It was like a Hollywood set, as they used to say. There was plenty of water underground. They made an atmosphere so they could breathe without spacesuits. But war destroyed all that.

YouTube finally made it to a part at the end of the war. “After the dust settled, hundreds of millions died. A few thousand people launched to Venus. Millions more were left behind, unable to pay to escape.

“Yeah, yeah, but how did they survive?” Killian said with the impatience of someone only a century old.  

“Anti-aging tech helped those left behind somewhat, but lifespans dropped from millennia to centuries. They dug deeper with the remaining Boring Company machinery and rebuilt new tunnels.”

“Hmmm,” Killian thought. “Just go deeper. I wonder if I could fly down to the surface of Venus.”

“Google, search the lowest altitude for life on Venus.” A screen popped up beside YouTube with an answer in text of “80 kilometers.”  

Killian's eyes opened wider in hope. “Ok, ok, we’re at 100km now, I might be able to hide 20km below here. Just gotta figure out how to get there. I have no ship. My apartment is more or less stationary, floating in this acid cloud.”

“Youtube, search for last living occupants on earth.”

A new video started up. Killian skipped a few minutes. “As the sea levels rose, humanity followed the food sources. One-third of all fish in the seas died due to climate change; global warming. Cooler temperatures at the North and South poles became the only hospitable areas. Mountains found under what used to be called permafrost provided land for housing…”. Killian stopped the video there.

“I could always just stay here at 100km on Venus but fly away from the cities. What do you think pup?” His dog had come back to its charging station near the couch. The cat was nowhere to be seen. Picking up the metallic mutt, Killian talked with it: “I know, I know. We can’t take the hover-car down to the planet’s surface, it would melt! But we could fly it past Billy’s house and just keep on driving. What’s that? How would we get food? That’s a very good question. I have no idea. There aren’t any fish up here are there puppy? No, that’s right.” Killian set the dog down and it scampered over to fill up its batteries. The dog’s eye-lights went dark.

“How am I going to do this?” Killian slumped, feeling rejected from his lack of good ideas. He muttered to himself: “should have started working on this when rumors of exodus began.” 

“Google, how much food is in storage in all of Cloud City?” Google responded by reading a text search result to him: “There are enough acid converters to produce fruit to feed the entire population of Venus indefinitely. Additionally, if any city’s acid converter fails in food or fuel production, there are backups in every city.”

“Stupid old google results. Obviously, we don’t have infinite acid anymore which is the reason we’re leaving the planet. Google, search for how much food could be made from the remaining acid on Venus.”

Google replied: “Acid depletion caused by overpopulation and overuse of food and fuel to keep cloud cities afloat leaves Venus with only enough food to fill the space shuttles leaving for the 3 billion mile trip to Neptune.”

“Incoming Call. Incoming Call. Incoming Call.” Killian’s attention was diverted from Google to the phone app. He hesitated but answered. “Hello?”

“Killian. I know we’ve never been that close since your birth parents were killed on Mars in the wars. But I want you to know I love you. I want you to know.” The woman on the other end of the call was getting emotional. Killian could not remember ever seeing her cry before now.

“Killian, dear, I know you want to go to Neptune with your friends.” She started, but noticing her adoptive son rolling his eyes, she sniffed and composed herself. “Son, I want to tell you something. You must keep it secret until launch.” Her pause made Killian glanced up at her on the video screen, then back to the floor. “I have secured us seats on a flight back to Earth.”

Killian’s face changed. His apathetic eye-rolling was replaced with shock. His mouth dropped open slightly and his attention was now fully on the video screen of his assigned parent #36,098,234,520.

“Earth has been healing since most of humanity left it. I just don’t have it in me to travel for years to Neptune when we could just spend a few months flying back to Earth. And it was wonderful there! You’ll see, I swear it. And we’ll work to keep Earth alive this time. And…”

Killian cut his mother off: “Mom, it’s ok, you don’t have to convince me! I’d love to go with you. Thank you for doing this!”

His mother sat back in surprised awe. She had never seen her son express anything this positive to her in all their time together. It had been almost 100 years now since she got him as a babe just 16 years old. “Really? Well, that’s great Killian! Hurry up then, we’re leaving tonight on a secret flight. If the planet knew about this they’d surely protest. But I’ve been saving up for centuries now and bought our way on through some of my connections at work!”

“Oh my God, mom, I can’t believe this. This is so great. Thank you so much! Okay, where can I meet you? And Can I bring my dog?”