The Last Image of Home
Short SF-Stories
The Archive of Vanities: Paris 3126
The navigation system identified the planet as Lutetia, yet the sight held no grandeur. Instead of the fabled blue of old, a sky of oxidised copper stretched over the ruins—a toxic greenish grey that seemed to crush the city’s skeletal remains.
Silently, the spacecraft—a monolithic wedge of matte chrome—glided through the haze. It touched down where the charts placed the Champ de Mars. But instead of grass, a dead expanse of vitrified ash awaited them, crunching beneath the landing struts.
The hatch opened with a mechanical hiss. Three figures stepped out into the open.
They were imposing, each of them over eight feet tall. Their bodies possessed an almost painful thinness, their limbs long and graceful like those of insects. Their heads, entirely hairless and of a perfect oval shape, gleamed in the pale light. They wore suits made of a shimmering fabric that refracted the sun's remaining light into spectral colors, making them appear like walking prisms.
"Position confirmed," said Unit 7-Alpha. His voice was flat, devoid of any modulation that might have suggested excitement. "We are in the sector ancient maps designate as Paris." He pointed a long, four-jointed finger toward the north. There rose a bizarre structure: a massive skeleton of iron, buckled in the middle like a crushed blade of grass, its brownish-red struts devoured by rust. The Eiffel Tower, once the symbol of an epoch, leaned toward the bone-dry bed of the Seine, which was now merely a deep, scarred trench in the cityscape.
"Radiation levels are within acceptable parameters for biological units of our class," 4-Beta stated while swinging an analyzer. "Oxygen saturation at 18 percent. Nitrogen dominant. Toxins present but neutralizable by our filters. The species Homo Sapiens has been extinct here for approximately 1042 standard years."
"Logical," 9-Gamma replied. "The ecological suicide rate correlates with the data from the Exodus. The year is 3126 according to their chronology. We are returning to the origin of the failure." The three archaeologists moved through the ruins with fluid, efficient steps. They showed no fear of the collapsing facades or the toxic dust. Emotions such as awe or dread had been purged from their genome centuries ago to ensure the efficiency of the colony. In a half-buried building that might once have been a luxury boutique, 4-Beta came across a collection of small, rectangular objects. They lay protected under a thick layer of preservative silicate dust.
"I have found data carriers," 4-Beta announced. "Primitive communication devices. Capacitive screens. Organic polymers and metals." With surgical precision, 7-Alpha activated a mobile energy transmitter. He placed a flat, black device—a smartphone—into the induction field. The display flickered. After a thousand years of silence, the hardware woke to one last, desperate life under the impulse of superior technology.
"I have access to the local cache," 7-Alpha said. "Visualization beginning." A holographic window opened above the device. The three beings stared at the flickering images. A young man wearing a cap was seen filming himself in a bathroom mirror. He pulled a face, flexed his muscles, and pursed his lips into a strange protrusion.
"Analyze action," 9-Gamma requested. "The subject is documenting its own physical appearance," 4-Beta replied. "It appears to be a form of ritual self-representation. Purpose: Unknown. Utility for the community: Zero."
Part 2
7-Alpha swiped to the next video. It showed a woman dancing in front of a plate of colorful food while simultaneously trying to position her face in a flattering light.
"Amidst the onset of ecological collapse, they devoted their remaining energy resources to distributing images of nutrients before consuming them?" 9-Gamma asked. "That is... inefficient."
"It is more than that," 7-Alpha said, switching to a series of short clips. "Here one sees individuals filming themselves performing dangerous activities to gain attention from strangers. They call them 'challenges.' They consume chemical cleaning agents or balance on tall buildings while the atmosphere around them was already becoming unstable." A brief silence hung between the giants. Their oval heads tilted in sync.
"The discrepancy between technological capability and cognitive application is remarkable," 4-Beta noted. "They possessed the means for global communication and used it for the archiving of facial expressions and pets. It is illogical to destroy a world while ensuring that one is well-lit in the process."
"A spark of pity would be appropriate," 9-Gamma said suddenly. His voice was still monotonic, yet the words carried weight. "Not for their fate, but for their inability to recognize their own absurdity. They were like children playing with a torch in a library, rejoicing at the pretty flickering while the books turned to ash."
"Pity is an archaic concept," 7-Alpha corrected, "but in this case, the statistical probability of stupidity is so high that it represents a physical constant. We have enough samples." The beings deactivated the devices. The screens went black, and with them, the last testimonies of an era of narcissism vanished into the darkness of the ruins of Paris. They returned to the ship. As the engines powered up and the vessel slowly rose from the dusty ground, 7-Alpha looked down from the observation window at the rotting Eiffel Tower. He placed his long hand on the terminal. In his genes, buried deep beneath layers of genetic optimization, artificial evolution, and eight hundred years in the cold exile of the stars, there was a tiny sequence that reacted to this sight. It was not melancholy, for they knew no home other than the void of space. It was the cool recognition of a genetic connection.
"Prepare for the jump," the commander ordered. "We return to the fleet. Earth is no longer an archive. It is merely a monument to what we left behind when we were still small, had hair, and believed our own reflection was the most important thing in the universe."
The ship shot into the sky, pierced the toxic clouds, and left the dead cradle of humanity behind. The descendants of those who had fled in time no longer looked back. They had chosen logic, and logic told them that one does not build a future upon ruins.
THE END