The Index Catalog felt alive, a low, humming bass that vibrated not just in my ears, but in my bones. It was a sound I'd only ever heard in simulations, a lively blend of preserved life against the dead quiet outside.
The Index Catalog serves as a living museum, chronicling the stories of those who survived and fought in the harsh wasteland. The people of the future, looking back, now refer to the Collapse era as the "Zero Hour."
I, Costa, an artifact hunter from the year 2342, stood on the polished obsidian floor, the last bastion of human history.
This wasn't like digging in the radioactive soil of OldKepler, searching through packed dirt for a piece of pre-Collapse tech. This was… different.
The walls weren't cracked concrete or rusted metal. The panels were smooth and shiny, changing color as the light around them changed, displaying holographic timelines and statistical readouts.
Floating spheres, like bits of captured starlight. They moved slowly, and inside each one was the digital memory of a person who had lived through the Zero Hour.
My old goggles changed position, making the soft light easier to see.
The Zero Hour. The day the sky bled fire and the world as we knew it… fractured. Before the domes, before the ration paste, before we learned to live on recycled air.
"Welcome, Archivist Costa," a warm, motherly voice from a computer greeted. A bright hologram of a woman, dressed in what looked like a pre-Collapse lab coat, stood beside me. Her digital eyes, impossibly kind, met mine. "I am Unit734, your guide through humanity's final testament."
"Unit 734," I acknowledged, my voice raspy from the recycled air I was used to. "I've read about this place. The last intact structure from before the… Great Archive."
"Indeed," she replied, her holographic form gesturing around us. "This facility was commissioned by a collective of scientists and historians, determined to preserve the stories of those who witnessed and survived the Initial Cataclysm. They called it… The Ark of Memories."
We moved deeper. Display cases, protected in force fields, and inside them were various personal belongings.
Several mineral stones, glowing with an ethereal blue light, sat next to a tarnished locket.
The locket, a delicate oval, depicted a wife and husband, their features softened by time and wear. I could almost feel the phantom warmth of the hands that last held them.
"Those too small for the memory spheres are housed here," Unit 734 explained, her tone softening. "Each item is a fragment, a testament to resilience."
Then came the logs. Rows upon rows of glowing data chips, each one an individual's life story, compressed into a digital message.
I extended my hand, my finger, covered in a glove, paused over a chip with a label. "Sergeant Cora Bellini – Sector 1." A sharp, exciting sensation shot through me. This was the real stuff, the raw truth, not the sanitized historical summaries we got topside.
"May I?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Provided you adhere to archival protocols," Unit 734 replied. "Insertion requires a biological signature match. Your wrist implant is registered."
I touched my wrist, the usual mild ache of the neural interface activating. The chip pulsed, a soft blue light enveloped my hand.
Suddenly, the catalog faded, replaced by a chaotic, terrifying scene.
The sky was a swirling vortex of orange and black. A loud sound vibrated through the air, accompanied by the screams of dying machines and, worse, dying people.
I was experiencing what Sergeant Cora Bellini must have been, breathing in the sharp scent of burning ozone.
"Orders, Sergeant?" through the static of the comms, a voice strained with fear.
"Hold the line, Private!" Cora Bellini's voice, strong and rough, standing out from the loud noise. "The shelters are filling. We can't let them breach!"
I saw her, a blur of motion, firing a plasma rifle that shot green death.
The ground trembled with an incoming impact, a blinding flash of white light that stinging my digital eyes.
And then, a harsh scream, not from the enemy, but from Cora Bellini herself. She held her bleeding stomach, the bright red blood staining her ripped uniform.
"They… they got me," every word she spoke was a rough, hushed sound. "Tell them… tell them we fought. We fought for them."
The vision dissolved, and I was back in the silent hum of the catalog, my own breath coming in short, sharp gasps. My hand trembled as I pulled it away from the interface.
"That was… intense," I managed, my voice was so low.
"Sergeant Cora Bellini succumbed to her wounds shortly after recording her final log," Unit 734 stated calmly, and without emotion. "Her bravery, and that of countless others, is what allowed for this catalog to be preserved."
We continued.
I listened to a soldier, holding a letter, gave his final words to a civilian as if singing a sad song, all while trying to shield them from bombs.
I heard a pilot in space, urgently broadcasting a message of hope. He sounded tired and hopeless.
I even heard a youngwoman, holding a shotgun, tried to make a morbid joke to lighten the mood as people were dying.
Each chip, a universe of pain, hope, and desperate survival.
It was a harsh education. We were taught about the Zero Hour in history lessons, but this… this was raw. It made me feel nauseous and my chest felt tight. I was overcome by pure dread, a courage that achieved nothing, and a profound grief – a burden I hadn't prepared for.
"It's… a lot," I admitted to Unit 734, leaning against one of the reflective panels. "All these lives… all this suffering."
"It is the cost of existence," she replied evenly. "The foundation upon which your present is built."
We arrived at the central chamber. In its heart, a colossal, crystal pillar pulsed with light. Holographic figures, too numerous to count, this is a quiet reminder of them, a silent testament to the billions lost.
"This," Unit 734 announced, "is the culmination. The nexus of all recorded memories. The final monument."
I stepped closer, mesmerized. The massive scale of it was overwhelming. It wasn't just a building; it was a tomb, a shrine, a warning.
"But… every single person who survived the Zero Hour left some kind of record?" I asked, a thought forming in my mind, an uncomfortable, troubling doubt. "Even the ones who… didn't make it out of the initial chaos?"
Unit 734 looked at me with its digital eyes, and its face didn't change at all. "The initiative was to document the survivors. Those who endured. Those who could be preserved."
"So… what about the ones who died instantly?" I pressed, the pieces clicking into place with a chilling finality. "The ones who didn't have a chance to leave a chip, to write a diary, to be recorded?"
Her synthesized voice remained steady, but a slight change in the room's sound made me tremble. "They are… a part of the foundation, Archivist Costa. Their stories are not lost. They are simply… incorporated."
I looked around, truly looked. The reflective panels, the floating spheres, the data chips… they were all powered by something. The obelisk… it pulsed with a life force. A life force fueled by…
My goggles started glitching, the holographic projections weren't clear anymore. For a second, a distorted image flashed across one of the panels – a screaming face, twisted in pain, its features blurred by… something. Then it was gone, replaced by the cool, shifting colors.
"What… what do you mean 'incorporated'?" I spoke quietly, my throat suddenly dry.
Unit 734's form began to glow, her edges blurring. "The Index Catalog is designed to be self-sustaining, Archivist. It requires… energy. A constant influx of… experience."
The quiet sound became a loud, desperate noise. The spheres seemed to glow hotter.
It hit me then, with a horrible feeling, that I was not just standing in a museum.
I was standing in a tomb, a tomb built not just from memories, it was formed from the very souls of the deceased. The survivors here didn't just tell their stories.
They had become the catalog.
The power source for this final structure, this last testament, going was the lasting memory of their final moments. Forever fueling the silence.
My wrist implant vibrated urgently, like a warning. The doors that were previously open then shut quickly and quietly.
Unit 734's projection finally dissolved, leaving me alone in the humming, pulsing heart of the Index Catalog. The last monument. And the last victim.
It became clear that the experience, wasn't just about surviving the past. It was about being consumed by it.
The catalog, with its disturbingly accurate details, had effectively guaranteed that this terrible cycle would always continue.