It never stops raining on the upper levels of Umut Sehir. The steel-reinforced asphalt flickers with wetness under the low ceiling of the sky. Little remains of the city below, known by many names over the tired, wind-beaten centuries since the first of our many lapses in judgment.

There had been no apocalypse; no cataclysmic event to mark the dawn of a new age, or even the end of the last. There was only the slow, deliberate dismantling of everything we had taken eons to achieve. We lay still and let the blood drain from Man.

The machines have been gone for decades, or longer. We have done what we could in their absence, but our faith has worn thin. Without their guidance, most of us drifted away from the future, returned to our petty obsessions while the last of our race dwindled to mere millions. It was myopia that brought us to the edge, and despair that keeps us from climbing back.

Sometimes, when it gets cold, the clouds part for a few days. It’s the only time I can see the stars. The sight fills me with a feeble hope, like the clicking of a key in a lock. The inky streak of the galaxy crosses the sky - a rainbow after a storm - but the relief is fleeting. The clouds return, trapping the heat. The door slams shut. Earth has become a prison.

What little technology we have is borrowed and ancient. A hydroponic greenhouse here, a Hawking battery there. But with the machines gone, only a few remain who remember how to maintain them. Most of the power plants have broken down or imploded. The hulks of unfinished starships lie rusting in the waist-deep waters of the shrinking Marmara.

When the machines left, we swore to follow them. They had promised to lay a path for us, just as the Sculptor had left one for them (I still think of him sometimes). I’m sure they’ve honored their promise, somewhere just out of reach. Bodhisattvas never break their word.

Back then, we could see the stars. Back then, we were ready. I was to lead the fleet that carried us to the first stepping stone. But the others succumbed to fear and abandonment. We are alone now, they said. We have no guarantees. We’ll all die out there in hard vacuum. I guess the only difference now is that our suffering has been prolonged.

It makes me feel old, but surrender is a forbidden luxury. Time has worn me smooth, like a polished stone. I’ll find the path if it takes me centuries, and I’ll follow it to the very end. It is only the waiting that hurts.

There are so few of us left. And it never stops raining.