Osiris
Osiris is speculative fiction vignette about a secular monastery of doomsday do-gooders. —
Naya was trying hard to not freak out. She was impressively good at staying calm, or perhaps just used to chaos as many were since the Climate Spiral of the late 2020s. There is no pandemonium quite like a slow-moving disaster at its apex. Yet, as she learned – or rather learned from her mother – humanity survived. Its population had nearly rebounded in the last 30 years.
Situation report, go, she thought. Mauna Loa fucking exploded. How did the geologists not see this coming? Calm... facts only. The Hawaiian Islands are gone. Their levies are a speck of dust compared to the shockwave and tsunami… Megatsunami. Over 800 meter waves.
“Hey Meta, what is the largest tidal wave in recorded history,” Naya blurted.
“The largest tidal wave in recorded history was the Lituya Bay, Alaska megatsunami with waves estimated to reach 524 meters.” Large scale work on semantic web technology began again in earnest around 2040, but the AI still wasn’t smart enough to update in precisely real time. Not when the world was facing disaster and the UN Public Interest Data Center hadn’t yet cleared public disclosure.
Sounds like Mauna Loa Eruption – that’s what they’ll call it, right? -- hasn’t made it through Chokepoint yet. Too bad the big techs are still too cowardly to let the AI check Cryptospace. Rebbit must be bonkers now.
“Focus. Okay. The world’s largest volcano just went nuclear.” She was breaking between internal and external monologue irregularly. A nervous tick.
The siren blared again. “ALERT! REMINDER! CODE RED! ALL PERSONNEL YOU HAVE 9 HOURS TO COMPLY WITH PROTOCOL 8BG. REPEAT: ALL PERSONNEL YOU HAVE 9 HOURS TO COMPLY WITH PROTOCOL 8BG. PROTOCOL BOOKS ARE IN YOUR DESKS. CURRENT TIME IS 08:12. OVER,” came over the crackly loudspeaker. The same message came immediately to her watch via their intranet application.
“Oh… There’s a tidal wave, and I am on a ship.” We have to be safe, right? This carrier is massive… What, am I an infant without object permanence? To a wave that size we are a ragdoll to a tiger. But, we do have the entire landmass of New Zealand between us and the wave. Could that stop what seems to be the largest tsunami in recorded history? Could even California or Japan or Mexico survive this? The Southeast Asian islands?
To avoid vomiting she did some calculations. New Zealand would take the brunt and would be mostly washed away. Will the waves wrap around or overtake the island and reach us? Their atoll was levied and fortified, but she expected the navigators were white-knuckling some calculations. The next protective landmass, Tasmania was about 1,500 miles away. Their fleet was about 5,000 miles from Mauna Loa. The tsunami is traveling at 550 miles per hour – estimated. The Osiris could travel about 43 knots, or 50 miles per hour.
Shit. We have no chance of leaving. It sounds like we are buckling up. Some of the faster, smaller vessels with jet propulsion will probably make it out, plus those with auxiliary helicopters or seaplanes. Much of their rag-tag company of slow luxury yachts and old trawlers around Osiris would be toast.
Naya tracked down her emergency instruction booklet. It was laminated paper. Though much more advanced technologies existed, when the world nearly ends and power grids fail, people like to get back to the basics. The paper thematically fit into the refurbished 1959 Centaur-class Aircraft carrier. After the British sold it to the Indian Navy in 1987, it had only been “updated” once in 2022 when Hank Gauss purchased it in the first ever private sale of an aircraft carrier. It would have otherwise been scrapped at a loss by the Navy and Gauss had no qualms with them removing all weaponry beforehand. He just needed space for people, science equipment, and supplies.
“Let’s see… Contingency 8 – Emergency responsiveness protocol, tidal wave.” She shuffled the paper again. “Plan B – Non-evasive maneuvers… Action gamma – insulate and submerge…. Oh god, were going under the wave.”
The document instructed Naya to open her emergency provision locker and retrieve a full faced scuba mask with oxygen tank, small plastic pill bottle, and mouth guard as well as two sturdy loop straps not unlike the seatbelts on an airplane. She placed them on her bed for later and proceeded out her hatch door, left down the long hallway, past mess hall B, then past the cryostorage room, then down a ladder directly into her lab.
Her research partner, Ram Ghosh, was already there and busy putting a cover on their automated assay machine. As always – since his first day taking the monastic pledge of good works required of those on Osiris – Ram seemed cool and calm. Naya supposed if she grew up like he did, nothing would be that bad comparatively.
He was, however, unusually reticent and lacking jokes. “Hey, Naya. Instructions are on the counter. Essentially, we need to put the waterproof covers on the instruments and secure loose objects. Also, collect what data we can from the current experiments. We should have enough time at least,” Ram said. After reading the instructions, Naya started helping.
“I’ll clear out the incubator. Do we have any of the Phi-12 lichen strain in cryo already? The antibiotic titers are insane”, she asked. He checked the logs and saw the answer was no, so she quickly prepared a sample to freeze. They worked for a bit, welcoming the distraction and sense of normalcy. Then it dawned on Naya that she might die. At least academically she had long accepted her death and devoted herself to the protection of life and mitigation of existential risk. Perhaps that’s what happens when you come of age in a mass extinction event. Now, the grim immediacy her blood chilled. She grasped for comfort.
“Ram, what if all our work was for nothing? If Osiris sinks, most of our research will never be applied. All the medicines and vitamins and proteins we made biosynthetic pathways for: gone.”
Ram smiled gently, “We aren’t going to sink. Our engineer corps is brilliant. Marissa has 2 PhDs in materials science and physics, so I feel pretty good about her contingency plans. She told me about this one. Once everything is secure we will fill the ship with low-density foam to reduce water inundation and shaking, plus displace buoyant air. Then, the sea floor winches will drag us down 20 or 30 meters where we will avoid the brunt of the waves. Even if the system fails and we do die, the genetic code is in the cloud. The Mars colony is already producing a few peptides at 100L scale. If this wave takes the space ports out and Mars is on its own, our tech could be a lifeline for them. Regardless, the data our group has published on BioGit is already being used by production hubs around the world. And, will continue to be used and multiplied. You saw the DoD report on the biosecurity impact of that fungicidal protein. Anyways, we will be fine.”
“Thanks, buddy. You’re right. We have way too many problems to tackle still,” she replied.
For a few hours, they intermittently spoke about the immediate tasks at hand and the work they still hoped to accomplish, but mostly about themselves and what drove them to give up much of their leisure and consumption to live on the Osiris and use their talents for the common good outside of the market or academia. Ram had been a post-doc at Stellenbosch. Naya was a synthetic biologist at Gingko. The devastation of the 2020s touched them, but not as much as many others, and both felt an irresistible urge to stabilize society and preserve what nature was left.
Gradually, then suddenly, it became time to return to their bunkrooms. The lab was ready as it could be, so Naya returned the way she’d came – the same way she took nearly daily for the past five years.
The situation was becoming real again as Naya re-entered her room and saw everything from earlier laid out. The instructions told her to open the plastic pill bottle and consume the 2 pills: fast acting sleeping tablets. This would conserve oxygen. Naya, more calmly, donned the mouthguard and facemask then initiated the oxygen supply. She then surmised that the pills were also intended to reduce the trauma and perhaps even memory of what was happening. She then looped the two straps over her bedframe and mattress roughly at chest and thigh level. Naya slipped in between the straps and her mattress then tightened the clasps until she was snugly secured. Then, she waited, and thought. This maneuver was, practically, untestable at full scale though when she’d thought it over determined the idea wasn’t totally crazy. Better than frantically and fruitlessness running away from the problem, she’d thought. It would be nice if our benefactors had built the community in the mountains… Ah, I know that wasn’t politically practical given the Organization was operating outside of government confines, and not popular with the bureaucratic establishment. And, yes, boats were more modular and adaptable.
The last thing Naya remembered, before falling into a deep dreamless sleep, was a soft alarm sounding and fat, pale grey drops spurting from the sprinkler head above the bed. They grew and hardened as they landed on surfaces and each other in great heaps.
Naya awoke confused, hardly able to see or move. She noticed her scuba mask and remembered the tsunami and foam. She knew she’d have to wait for the solvent to come from the sprinklers to dissolve the foam and free her. Naya squirmed claustrophobically, then her heart leaped. “I survived! I am alive! It fucking worked,” she screamed into the foggy plastic. Her mind raced thinking about the genius of engineering and chemistry – she loved her Osiris compatriots now more than ever. Her mind raced thinking about the destruction the world had faced and was now facing and of what her role might be now. After half an hour, the solvent finally came, cutting through the dense foam like nothing and leaving only gas and some slime. Thirty more minutes and Naya was free, sitting on the bed like a liberated slug.
Around then, the loudspeaker came back on – a bit garbled, but audible. “Good evening Osiris, survivors of the Mauna Loa Eruption. Please take a moment to reflect in gratitude and to mourn the incalculable losses to life incurred and underway. Then, it is time to get to work. Try to find a clean jumper and everyone report to the dining hall in one hour. Current time is 19:21.”
Naya meditated, legs crossed on the filthy bed. Then she went to her locker and found clean, and surprisingly, dry clothes. The viridiphile in her always loved the blue-green jumpsuits – the color of life in her mind. Naya cleaned her room for a while then trudged through the hallway, like the slug through its lair, until she reached the dining hall. It was already filling up with hundreds of her compatriots. They chatted in whispers but were mostly silent as the room filled until the hour was up.
In walked Hank Gauss, decked in his greens, looking more grave and tired than ever. He clearly didn’t sleep through the tsunami. Naya always marveled at him: dedicating his entire life and personal fortune -- as well as becoming a social and political pariah -- to solving the biggest, most neglected problems in the world. To the Osiris, as she did, and this moment reminder her why his example had inspired her to pursue altruism through science.
Gauss stood up straight and opened his mouth. All eyes were fixed on him. He closed his mouth, thought for a moment, and rubbed his bald head before he began to pace between the rows of metal tables. His earset amplified his voice into the room’s sound system as he spoke.
“Our world is back in the crucible. One that writ large humanity was not prepared for, this time. That is, except for us… My friends, my brothers and sisters, scientists, and philanthropists, and now survivors once more over. This is not a time to revel: we prepared for this unlikely scenario – that one in hundred thousand -- because others would not even though the damage would be severe. Nor is this a time to mourn, unfortunately. We are still in a fight for our lives, for the survival of humanity, and for the stabilization of ecosystems the best we can.”
He shallowed. “The fallout from the Mauna Loa eruption is still not entirely clear. What we know is that the tsunami is wreaking unprecedented devastation. Flooding hundreds of miles inland of everything in its wake and entire cities and even countries washed away. Perhaps millions lost and trillions of animals. It’s not clear how world governments will respond, but we hear of mass panic and looting everywhere. But that is not the problem… It’s the dust. Probably enough to fill the Grand Canyon several times over. You know what this means: a long winter, maybe years with global sunlight penetration materially down. Weather, crops, forests, human sanity, and peace itself could all death spiral.”
Gauss let that sink in. Everyone knew about this kind of existential risk, but no one wanted their minds to go there in the moment. He continued, “The world as we know it is ending and there is little we can do. Our job now is to persevere, to be resilient more than ever. We must be rational and creative and empathetic with each other. We will emerge, maybe after I’m gone, and try to plant the seeds, or nurture the surviving saplings, of the human and indigenous world. Along the way, we will do what we can. We have technology we can share… cellular agriculture systems, minireactors, quantum computers, and bioexploration tools. Most importantly, we have our culture here on Osiris. We are warrior monks and now we must truly be both. I am glad we started this work so long ago, together.”
Naya looked around the room and saw the stern faces with clenched jaws. Most of their eyes sparkled with pride and nerves and held-back tears, as did she.
