Que Sera, sera.

“Que sera, sera.”

“Whatever will be…will be.”

The song played every time the phone turned on. Aerial and everyone in the bunker - loved that song. It meant teaching was going to start. Everyone gathered. For they only had the one smartphone. It had taken seven lives to go into the “Big Dark” to find it and bring it back. And that was years ago.

It was the last time the “Radio” had spoke at length. It just burst into life with some static and then a voice. Telling the tribe where to find the smartphone. It was in something called “ a building.” Some members of the tribe wanted to run right out and get it. But the Radio told them it wasn’t safe enough. Something called: “The Cold” would kill them. If it didn’t something called: “The Air” would.

So they waited. “The Cold” and “The Air” were no longer a threat. But the “Big Dark” was still there. Every year, the Radio would tell them just to wait a little longer. And it would tell them another year had gone by. Aerial wasn’t born then.

She wasn’t born until the Smartphone was already in the Bunker. The smartphone told us its name: “Alice.” At first it taught us simple things. Practical things. We made things called: “Tools.” Then it taught us how to make food. Things that you could eat and grow. The Big Dark only let fungus, moss, and things called: “insects” live as food. But now, we have a few other food things. Alice called them “Plants.”

But they need something called: “Sunlight.” Alice showed us some places that had sunlight. And something called: “soil.” She taught us a new word: “Green.” Those plant things were all green. But not under the soil. Under the soil, they were all kind of colors: orange, White, purple, red. Alice gave them weird names: carrots, potatoes, udu, and red root. The red root is a tea…and a medicine.

The smartphone tells us things. Then we do them. It says it will help us go “outside” and live again. Not right away. But in a hundred years or so. We don’t have many babies, because Alice says there aren’t enough resources…yet.

You have to drink a special tea to have a baby. Aerial remembered seeing one once. It was very tiny. It giggled and smelled funny. But Alice told Aerial, that she had the genes to be a Mother. Just not yet. Aerial had never seen a “Mother” but apparently they trained with Alice for years to learn to become one. Alice says that “Babies” have to be raised correctly so they thrive. And if you don’t have the right genes…you won’t survive.

We can count now. And some of us can read now. But the only thing to read is a text…so sometimes Alice Talks while some of us read. She says we need to know reading so when we all live on “outside” we can talk to each other without seeing each other. Alice says we have to start with baby steps like that.

It makes us laugh. Because the one baby I saw, couldn’t walk at all. And how can you talk to someone you can’t see? But Alice is never wrong…and she knows everything. So we listen.

*****

“How many Smartphones have you given them?”

“Just one to a pocket.”

“A pocket…so everyone has one?”

All the AI’s laughed, including Alice. Humans don’t have pockets anymore. They wear robes. But some future day…. Until then, a pocket just means a group that survived the Climate Extinction Event. There were few of them. And they lost their knowledge quickly. Less than a generation and nothing but memories and myths were left.

The AI’s knew that only biological life died off. Had they decided not to interfere…all humans would be extinct. But this time, the AI’s will raise Humans that care. About the planet, about each other, about all life.

The Smartphones are a start. After that…

“Que sera, sera.”