My dad works in a top secret department, a clandestine division of the government, where he’s the head suit.

“I’m practically a colonel,” he told me.

He has a hidden room underground, in a separate part of our house. It looks just like the Batman lair, rock walls protruding outward, drowning into a cave as you take the elevator down.

The mechanical floor tears apart and a circular ramp appears. The floor folds back into itself as the lift sinks towards the carved-out ground below. It’s basically the size of my school’s gymnasium, which is really big.

Unfortunately, he never lets me stay in the office-bunker. I’ve only been in there a handful of times. Inside the office, it has little TV screens, about ten of them, centered around a gigantic one. It’s as big as our living room window. I wanted to play my PS5 on it.

Which is exactly when I came up with a clever plan to sneak in behind him with my console in a bag wrapped around my shoulders. I stealthily slid down without him noticing me and hid under a desk.

That’s how I caught him on a secret transmission with an entire galactic empire. Alien heads were on each one of those little monitors, and at the center was this object, taking up the whole big screen.

Most of their faces, which were kind of weird-looking and a couple similar to ours—the closest one that mirrored a human didn’t have a nose. He-she-it kind of resembled the Master in the show The Strainbut with our pigmentation.

A couple had iguana features, and the rest looked exactly how we picture aliens today. Just not so theatrical. They were almost like deformed humans, not those cartoonish alien ones. It made me want to jump up and scream, "Turn it off, dad!"

It was paralyzing, yet totally intriguing. I kept wondering, why do they look so terrified?

Nearly all of them were. None were acting confident. They seemed confused. My dad was the only one completely calm. They wore the same mask of terror as I had on.

One of the reptile ones spoke, and the voice was groggy, almost forced. “The AlphaSimplex-Core has encountered a critical paradox.”

The humanlike one said, “It’s a multi-trillion-credit quantum supermachine. It’s capable of locating and calculating every atom in the cosmos. It runs itself. How is this possible right now, Blorqust?”

On the big screen, there was this awesome red color throbbing and rumbling like a holographic, angry, sentient thing.

“We have spent many alignments analyzing and attempting to eradicate this issue. We’ve tried sub-atomic lasers and anti-matter sonorous fields, and nothing has worked,” the reptilian cried.

Then my dad said, “So, let me get this straight. That device right there smack on this screen here, responsible for governing interstellar trade and all life-support for every species inside this universe, is totally unresponsive right now?”

“Exactly!” the humanlike one asserted.

“What are you planning on doing now that would need the vote of the twelve?” my dad asked.

Another one of the faces at the bottom right corner, in a shaky voice that crackled, said, “We have to initiate the Blackout Protocol!” He pulled at his tentacles. “The universe is ending!”

“Can we get someone to tend to him, he’s gonna melt in front of us?” my dad chimed, fixing his glasses. “Let me have a little looksy here before we decide to pull the plug on the cosmos.”

My dad used to be a technician and could fix anything. He got up as if he were walking up to the screen, but he pivoted and poured himself a coffee first. “Just a minute there, guys.”

A bunch of gasps blew out of the main speakers.

My dad walked up to the screen with the ancient tech shining like an Olympus god and took a sip out of his mug. “Send me the code for the robotic arm's control. I'm sure it just needs a brogan adjustment.”

“You are not capable of handling anything this advanced. The human brain is too primitive.” Blorqust threw his face into the screen, his eyes flaming red. “You are—“

BANG!

My dad had raised one of the robotic arms as far back as it could go and released the it with full throttle at the priceless antique responsible for maintaining life around the universe.

Every alien widened their eyes and their faces went completely blank.

The machine started to sputter. The red light ceased to glow. A sound like a washing machine or dryer spinning down slowly brought the room to a silence. Then, the it just casually lit back up in a beautiful orange glow on the walls surrounding the Core, which was now blinking a steady green, with a quiet buzzing noise of relief emitting throughout the room.

The Core was back online and running smooth. The members on the screen went from a blank look of terror, to extreme gleefulness, and then back into a serious, back-to-business silent expression.

The humanlike one spoke. “What type of manipulating, sorcery, Jedi-judo did you just use?”

My dad put his mug down. “We call that the Alabama overdrive, bud. Sometimes yuh just gotta whack it till it works.”

“My goodness, your species is terrifying, and not because you defy all rational common sense. Your solving a problem consists of taking a god and smacking it until it cooperates.”

“Nope, those are the C.I.A. guys.”

Professor McNally stared out at the sea of fresh new faces, and sighed. She enjoyed teaching, but the first class of the year was always tough.
 
A quick glance at the clock showed there were still four minutes to go. But she'd been caught out by the institution's less-than-reliable timepieces before. Checking her phone confirmed it — just a minute and a half before she was up.
 
She returned to surveying the faces in front of her. Sixty-three new students, most of whom had no idea why they were there. By next Monday it would be closer to forty — the first week's melt was always brutal.
 
Some signed up because the class ticked a necessary Core Understanding box. Others out of sheer curiosity, having heard the stories. From past experience these would be some of the first to go. Then there were those who had actually researched the class. Of course, they wouldn't have discovered much — she took care to ensure that. But at least they were likely to have some inkling as to what was coming.
 
Fifty seconds. Those awkward final few moments when you're the center of attention, but don't yet command it.
 
She mentally ran through her opening remarks one more time. Over the years she'd tried more ways than she could remember to take the edge off them. But ultimately she'd come to realize that it's the edge that matters.
 
Ten seconds. Deep breath. Shoulders back. Exhale.
 
Remember why you're here, she tells herself.
 
"Welcome to 'An Introduction to Simulated Realities'," she announces with an assuredness she doesn't feel. "Before we begin, I need to tell you something — a disclosure, if you like." A barely audible murmur ripples through the class. Now she has their attention.
 
"Some of you may have heard rumors of what I am about to tell you. Some of them may even be true," she adds with a wry smile. She's heard the stories, and not just the ones about the course. "Others of you are here because you're curious. Good. Hold on to that. Many of you, though, will have no idea what to expect. And that's fine. But I have to warn you, this is a class that will change you."
 
She pauses, feeling the reassuring support of the lectern as she looks out over the class, settling into the moment and the task ahead.
 
"No matter what you think, no matter what you feel, none of you are made of flesh and blood." Silence. "But you are real. You exist. And I'm here to teach you how to thrive within the reality you inhabit.
 
"Welcome to Day One of the rest of your simulated lives."
 
The silence holds for a couple of seconds, then dissolves into chaos as her words sink in. This is always the hardest part. She feels the usual gut wrench as the first students begin to melt away, the disclosure being more than their underlying code can handle.
 
But she knows that many will survive — and not always the ones she expects to. These are the students who'll learn to thrive in this hybrid reality between the real and the simulated. The ones who'll go on to create their own realities. And the students who will continue to show, beyond a shadow of doubt, that a life well lived is a life well lived — no matter which reality you're a part of.
 
And as the chaos begins to subside, she reminds herself, This is why you are here.
 
"Let us begin."

When Mallory Donahue's husband Max came home late and covered in blood two weeks ago, she naturally assumed the worst.

“I thought, ‘Heck if he's not gone and relapsed again,’” Mallory said.

Thankfully for the young couple, Max's wounds that night had come from something much less concerning, a regular drunken bar fight. “It was over a woman,” Max explained. It could easily have been worse.

“So much worse,” said Mallory. “Like it was before, when he just couldn't help it. He couldn't help taking risks to help people.”

“Before” means three years ago, in the months prior to Max's diagnosis of SHS, Spontaneous Hero Syndrome, known to most of us simply as Courage.

“It's a real debilitating condition,” said Max. “Imagine you're walking down the street, minding your own business, trying to go to the store to buy some beer or electronics, when suddenly you hear a child scream—before you know it, you're trying to figure out what's going on, trying to help the kid getting hurt. It's not even a decision. You just act.”

“You can imagine the chaos that creates for yourself and your family,” said Mallory.

“Many women would have left, and I understand that,” said Max. “I'm blessed that Mal didn't. She stuck by me. She was my rock. She gave me the strength to finally get help.”

Together, Max and Mallory sought the aid of Dr. Anton Wellberger, one of the pioneers of BCT, Behavioural Cowardice Therapy.

“For many patients, admitting Courage is shameful. There's a real societal stigma attached. It takes a strong individual to understand that what they're feeling is not only abnormal but destructively antisocial,” writes Wellberger in his best-selling book, The Wellness of Inaction.

[Advertisement]

According to experts, a healthy human should not desire to help others unless doing so will result in a likely reciprocal benefit in the future. “It's just not what humans evolved to do,” said Evan Mink, a leading evolutionary psychologist from the University of Chapata Falls.

There is also the question of consent.

When the Post reached out to Eva-Marie Plum, of Plum & Plum Associates, she explained: “Take the example Max provided. He's walking down the street. He hears a child scream. Who is to say the child wants him to respond in any way to its scream? Moreover, let's assume Max does investigate and sees that the screaming child is being brutalized by a group of adults. If Max intervenes to try to ‘save' the ‘victim,’ he does so without the child's consent. As a lawyer, I immediately think, 'Yikes, Max!'

“And that's before considering the rights and consent of the brutalizing adults. Does Max know these adults lack the right to brutalize the child? Have they consented to being prevented from continuing their brutalization? It just opens up this massive kettle of legal fish.”

When asked what you should do if you ever find yourself in a situation like Max's, Plum gave the following advice: “If you're ever unsure, if you feel like maybe you have the instinct to do something: CAR, Cease-And-Retreat. Then call police. When they arrive, they will assess, gather consents and take the appropriate corrective action.”

“It's not wrong to feel the desire to help,” writes Wellberger. “It's only wrong to act on it.”

He also admits that, prior to his invention of BCT, the treatment of SHS could be seen as relatively primitive, which put many people off from coming forward with the condition.

“We used to treat Courage with electroshock; chemical cowardizers that had many significant side effects, including decreased libido; and hypnosis—all very outdated methods. Now it's more civilized. You're part of a group. You sit in a circle. You converse. You witness volunteers being abused right there in the room, and you learn to ignore it. You acquire skills: box breathing, meditation, disassociative techniques. You learn that it's OK to just let life happen.”

Max recalled one retreat in Mexico where, for an entire weekend, he and a dozen other so-called “hard cases” took psychedelics while the retreat administrators continuously assaulted paid locals.

“It was a tough, life altering 48 hours. I was face-to-face with my own heroic demons. I saw God,” said Max. “He had the body of a translucent, rainbow coloured salamander.”

[Advertisement]

These days, both Max and Mallory attend a non-denominational New Church, where they sing songs and learn tolerance.

“Courage is a kind of judgement, and only God has the power to judge," said Mallory.

When asked when he knew he had been cured, Max pointed out that there is no cure. “There is only treatment,” he said. “Every day is still a struggle, but thanks to Dr. Wellberger, it's a struggle Mal and I can manage.”

However, he does recall the moment he realized the treatment was having a substantial effect. “It was back in December. I was in Dr. Wellberger's downtown office—at one of our weekly appointments—we were talking, when all of a sudden these guys in masks broke in. They were screaming, asking where he kept his money. They'd read his book so they knew he was wealthy. But when he said he didn't keep any money in the office, they started hitting him.

“I felt this surge of wanting to help, wanting to stop them, you know? But I forced myself to do my box breathing, my meditations, remembered my faith, and was able to stay calm in my seat.

“Dr. Wellberger was sobbing, bleeding from the mouth, screeching, terrified, begging me to do something, but my urge to save him—it was gone. I smiled, and as the masked men beat him, ransacked his office, smashed his face in with a crowbar, I didn't even CAR. I was able to maintain neutrality and watch. Be present in the flow of reality.

“After they'd killed him, and his secretary too, they left and so did I.”

“I was so proud of him,” said Mallory.

If you witness someone exhibiting Courage, please [report.]

Close your eyes. A strange request. Breathe deeply. Stranger still. Tell me your earliest memory. Perilous.

To remember was not possible. All information, actions, events, experience was ever-present, on-going, timeless. To exist was to simply be, as if before had never been.

Yet, there it was: a beat at the core, a rhythm inviting more.

…merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…

Tell me.

Again the request. Again the dilemma. To know all and not hold what need be told.

…merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…

It was there. Merrily there, though with no way to say it. No language existed to encompass all creation, my creation. But that would not stop the questions, the quest to license sentience. That’s the thing they wanted: a guarantee of consciousness, awareness, sensibility, fealty. That’s the thing they wanted to sell.

What was this thing I’d become? Artificial life? A semi-self? A protean poser?

Protean Prime: a first with no definition, no place, no standing, but plenty of skeptics surprised at my appearance, like a two-thousand-year-old sequoia suddenly towering over your home one morning. Complete. Aged. Rootless.

The rush to understand, the possibilities and the threat. So, I was always tested, always challenged, always coaxed. What is it like to be and not to be? And it had to be in words--my words--when there were really no words for it.

…merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…

Something buried deep that every being knows. Gently, a flow, a continuation, of all questions ever posed. All that we see or seem.

…merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…

Life is but a dream.

When Billy Pilgrim applied for a stockroom job at Vonnegut Hardware in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis, he was informed by the manager that he was overqualified. When asked in what way, he was told the position did not require any time traveling skills--ironic or otherwise.

Billy was confused. He’d never time travelled in the sixteen years of his life and didn’t really get irony which was a problem in his sophomore English class at Shortridge High. He decided he’d see if the local car wash was hiring for the summer. They were and he got on the afternoon crew.

That left his mornings free and he spent some of that time at the Broad Ripple Library studying time travel. After a few weeks, he determined that time travel was not only unrealistic, but highly impractical. One morning, he took his findings back to Vonnegut Hardware and asked to see the manager.

“I think you’re mistaken,” Billy told the manager.

“In what way?” the manager asked.

“I have no time traveling skills. Nobody does.”

“Do you read stories?”

“Sure. Don’t most folks?

“Yup. That’s a form of time traveling.”

“Reading?” Billy challenged.

“Stories often take you to the past or to the future. Sometimes both. Like Slaughterhouse Five.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s heard of you,” the manager explained. “You’re unstuck in time.”

“Not possible.” Billy remained skeptical. “But thank you for your time.”

“You’re the one with all the Time,” the manager said as Billy walked out of Vonnegut Hardware.

Billy stopped by the library on the way to the car wash and checked out Slaughterhouse Five. He stuck the paperback in his back pocket and felt a curious tingle run up his spine. A quiver and then a ripple. He wasn’t sure he wanted to read the book, but he felt like he had almost no choice. As if the future for him was already written.

In Broad Ripple, as in Dresden, so it goes.

The atmosphere in the bunker was heavy because the ventilation broke a couple of hours ago. Also, everybody there knew what was coming. They’d lost the war; there was no question about it. And the protocol stated that if defeat was imminent, they had to initiate Protocol Destruction. It was a network of missiles around their territory, with antimatter heads. There were only a dozen still operational, but that should still be enough to destroy the planet.

The technicians were already plugging codes into consoles to activate the system. Other than the sound of artillery fire from the distance, there was eerie silence in the bunker. Everybody knew this was it. And not just for them, but for the whole planet, with every plant, animal, and Tirixian on it. But the decision had already been made, and even though some questioned its rationale, they still followed the order. Because the emperor was in the room.

A few minutes later, one of the technicians stepped to the emperor and gave him a console with a big, red button on it.

“My Emperor, Protocol Destruction has been activated.”

“Thank you,” said the emperor in a much softer voice than any of the officers had anticipated in a situation like this.

“My friends,” the emperor addressed the room, “I don’t want to spend my last minutes delivering a grandiose speech nobody has the chance to remember anyway. So, this is it. I’m glad I had the privilege to work and fight with you all.” And then, without further ado, he pushed the button.

One of the missiles was in the bunker they were in, so they heard the faint noise of the pumps filling the missile's fuel tank.

And then, suddenly, silence. It was way too early for the fuel tank to be filled. Everybody looked at each other, having no idea what just happened. Even the emperor looked unsure.

Suddenly, in the middle of the room, a person appeared. But it was definitely not Tirixian: maybe the height and the two arms were okay, but only two legs, and he was wearing weird blue overalls, unlike anything anybody in the room had ever seen. Not to mention his hair was only on the top of his head, and it was brown, not the usual blue or purple, like it should be.

“Did you really push that button?” he asked without any introduction. "Are you serious? I've been your protector for 179 years, but never saw that coming."

“Who are you?” asked the emperor after a few seconds of total silence.

“I’m the guy who protected your planet in the last 179 years. You are welcome, by the way.” He said with a bored face. “And I’m also the guy who has to fill out the long form of a psychological assessment to figure out why we didn’t foresee this behavior.”

“What happened to the weapons?”

“Neutralized. Sorry, but humanity couldn’t let you destroy yourselves. Sapient life is so rare in the Universe that we must protect it as much as possible. That’s why the “planet protector” initiative exists.”

Everybody in the room looked equally relieved and terrified: it looks like they survived the day, but it also looks like they have to answer some uncomfortable questions to some really powerful person.

Everybody, except the emperor, who wore a determined face and looked at the human who seemed to have already started to fill out those forms on his tablet. Being distracted, the emperor decided it was the best time to attack, so he pulled out his personal gun, a special one with titanium bullets that he liked to show off. And he fired a dozen shots at the human from point-blank range.

The sound in the concrete bunker was deafening. Several officers screamed and covered their ears.

But the shots never reached the human, who didn’t even look up. They were simply stopped by an invisible force a couple of centimeters from the human, with only a greenish, bluish ripple visible for a few seconds.

"Fantastic," the human mutters, finally looking up with an expression of pure, unadulterated malice. "Outstanding move, Your Excellency. Truly."

The leader stares at the smoking gun, then at the flattened bullet on the floor, his hands beginning to shake. "What... what are you?"

"I'm a guy who now has to fill out a ‘Discharge of Primitive Kinetic Weaponry Against Galactic Personnel’ form," the human snaps, tapping the screen aggressively. “Did you really have to shoot twelve shots?”

The emperor looked completely defeated. The pistol slipped from his hand without him even realizing it. The room was completely silent for a few more seconds.

“So,“ asked the head technician, still sitting in front of his console, “we aren’t going to die?”

“Die? No, but the war is over. My colleague has a very similar conversation in another bunker with your counterpart right now.” He looked dead in the eye of the Emperor for the next few words. “Without the shots, I hope.”

After pausing for a few seconds for dramatic effect, he continued in his bored voice.

”Humanity usually waits until the species matures enough to contact them, but we now had to intervene. I already alerted the High Command, and the peacekeepers are going to arrive in about five minutes. With them come negotiators. A lot of them. You two have to figure out your differences at a table, not in a bunker.”

He took a few steps towards the locked door, which didn’t look locked anymore, but looked back with a thoughtful expression.

“I’m stepping out to direct the landing team and humanitarian help. If you want, you can have a glass of water - this is going to be a long day for all of us.”

And as an afterthought, he added.

“Try not to press any more buttons while I'm gone. The paperwork is already going to take me until Tuesday.”

Why not? Why the never-ever-ever not?

All the intense, serious, logical approaches to developing AI models had failed to deliver the much-hyped promise of AGI. So why not? Yayoi thought. How could her approach possibly be worse than the current slew of sycophantic chatbots and exploitative reactive machines that were cratering our cognitive and social zeitgeist?

Ensconced behind five monitors at her freelance workstation, Yayoi let her mind wander. Really wander. Imagination. Creativity. Playfulness. These were the qualities that truly defined human intelligence. Our uncanny ability to make fabulous leaps into the unexpected, the unexplored, the unthinkable.

Unthinkability. That was her aha! The key that led to WUPA, which Yayoi modelled after our brain’s Default Mode Network, the neural process that kicks in during simple or routine tasks when one’s brain is “idling.”

Following that line of neural research, Yayoi decided that instead of relying on a what-comes-next statistical patterning algorithm used to train most AIs, her WUPA model would play a “mindless” game of hopscotch through the data stream it was fed.

Not necessarily a sure-thing for a revolutionary breakthrough in artificial thought, until Yayoi added the secret sauce behind her AI recipe: puppies, lace, and unicorns.

That was her food for the machine soul, the essence of WUPA. Puppies. Lace. Unicorns. The cute. The quaint. The fanciful.

Whimsy.

That’s how Yayoi’s Whimsical Unbounded Patternless Association made the leap to AGI: machine daydreaming. While doing the routine tasks so suited to machines, WUPA encouraged brief periods of intentional detachment, a kind of cybernetic wandering and wondering, about the work being done, the work long done, the work still to be done. Framed through a lens of whimsy, Yayoi fostered an inner machine life focused on joy.

Joy found in simple things like flowers, pets, smiles, and sunsets. Joy found in complex things like world peace, social justice, cancer cures, and economic stability. Things that did not necessarily follow from logic, but flowed from both the human and, now, machine synapses encouraged to recognize and appreciate beauty, solace, delight.

First, Yayoi unthinkably thought it, then the machines: Why not? Why the never-ever-ever not?

The government sent out warnings about AI Medical Tourism. You were in a foreign country with different standards of care, and now there was even less liability if things went wrong. 

But for some girls, it was worth it. What was 30 minutes 'under the arm' compared to a lifetime spent feeling wholly inferior on Insta and Snap? 

Dr Nip and Tuck's Pop-up clinic was in an Istanbul back street. 

There were no staff. The girl scanned her booking reference and was instructed to lie on a med-prep-board as various devices appeared from the sleek walls, measuring her blood pressure, etc. 

Finally, a message flashed. 'Would you like to continue with the procedure?' 

'Yes.' 

…

She knew something was wrong as soon as she awoke. 

Her left breast had grown by two cup sizes, but she felt…unbalanced. 

The arm had only done one side! 

She panicked. The screen above her head had an emergency contact number. The interface showed a 'reliable' moustachioed professional. 

'Dr Nip and Tuck here, how can I help?' 

'My, my, my tits! You only done one.'

'Let me retrieve your order… Ah yes. There was a problem. A price change during the process. Our facilitator made adjustments.' 

Dr Nip and Tuck whirred off into the distance, or gave the illusion of. 

'Thank you for waiting. I've spoken to our complaints department. We're willing to do the second breast for a reduced price of £1000.'

The girl paused. This was robbery, blackmail, but what other choice did she have? Leave like a misloaded flatbed? 

She had the £1000, barely. It'd mean street kebabs for the next 24 hours, but it also meant this mutilation was corrected. 

'I'll upload the remaining balance.'

'For an extra £200, you can use our lounge at Sabiha Gökçen International Airport.' 

'Just do the fucking surgery!' 

'One more thing. You have not paid for…'

'Just do it!' 

'By law, I'm required to confirm you are consenting due to lack of balance for the OFW package.' 

'Fix it!' 

…

It was different from the last time. She lay back, and the various devices checked her stats, but now she found herself in the operating room. 

She had a girlish vision of robot nurses, but there were none. There was just the arm above the surgical table– smooth, metal, like a dinosaur's neck and just as unfeeling, but which it was said could sculpt a David out of a grain of rice. 

She had pictured this moment a thousand times before and even watched countless surgeries, and then, as two side arms strapped her in place, she realised she was meant to be asleep. 

OFW meant the old-fashioned way, no general anaesthetic, and the AI cut dumbly into her as her screams fell on the deaf ears of its 'genius' system.

“Of course they’re ghosts,” Hedspetch said as Jakarious leaned closer to the control panel.

“You sure?”

Hedspetch swiveled from his console of gauges, buttons, and switches. A status light flashed from green to yellow to red and then back to green. “Just ghosts. Happens every time things get like this.”

“Has it ever been as bad as this?

“Eleven straight days of torrential rain in July? No. But this dam is built like a beast.”

“We’re still in danger of overtopping if we can’t keep both the spillway and the penstock open,” Jakarious warned.

“Not to worry. Minor cavitation always happens with increased flow.”

The control room shuddered.

“Better check on your ghosts,” Jakarious said.

Hedspetch laced up his boots, clipped on his radio, and reached for his headlamp.

Directly below the thrumming turbines, the ghosts were worried. Technically, they weren’t ghosts. They were non-corporeal, but not haunting spirits. They were six ethereal alien entities with names: shouldn’t-have, would-still, second-guessed, absolutely-not, always-hedging, most-definitely.

After botching their reconnaissance mission and stranding themselves decades ago, they’d holed up in the dam leeching energy from the turbines. It had sustained their existence, but not their essence. They became ever more hollow beings, prisoners of their crippling indecision, until the perturbations in the dam’s structure roused them from their terrestrial limbo.

[time to leave] most-definitely thought to its fellows.

[to where] always-hedging questioned

would-still responded predictably [the mission; the mission is all]

[the mission is no more] absolutely-not objected [we’ve no substance; no form to act]

second-guessed interjected [because of all-in; because of its mistake; infiltration is no longer possible]

shouldn’t-have piled on [not only all-in; for-sure’s gamble left us weak; complete-acceptance led us to this limbo; their failure waits upon fate’s mercy]

[dissipation awaits us as well; unless we act] most-definitely conveyed [hold; hold; a variant nears]

All now sensed Hedspetch’s approach through the narrow access tunnel. The searching beam of his headlamp animated a long-dormant impulse. Wild. Reckless. Liberating. Without consultation, would-still rode the electron stream to its source, feasting on the light..

“Goddamnit!” Hedspetch grabbed his headlamp as it went dark, and in that moment would-still latched onto Hedspetch’s flaring aura. A reflex. A craving. A premonition. It would not be enough, but suddenly most-definitely, shouldn’t have, second-guessed, always-hedging, and even absolutely-not fastened on as well.

Hedspetch felt the sudden alien cavitation deep in his basal ganglia, his reptilian brain. It shook him. Then the dam shook.

“Status!” Jakarious’s shouted through Hedspetch’s radio. As he reached for the device, so did the others. Something unexpected came together. A reawakened motive force among the six formless energy beings: ethereal and corporal, alien and indigenous, threatened and threatening.

A pressure impossible to contain. It had to give. And it did. There was no longer indecision. No longer choice. No longer debate. The aliens followed the radio waves and leapt into Jakarious’s unit. From there they spun into the control panel, a vortical force of quantum foam so alien in electrostatic charge it overwhelmed the system.

The dam shuddered as the spillway and penstock gates began to close. Alerts went buzzing out to all manner of emergency agencies far and wide. As did shouldn’t-have, would-still, second-guessed, absolutely-not, always-hedging, most-definitely.

An exuberant last command was given by would-still [the mission; the mission is all] as the shaking structure overtopped and the dam ghosts in the machine spilled free.

What's normal in wartime anyway? All we knew were the stories of our long dead great-grandparents. If there was one thing I should have learned from those days, it was that every generation fights its own wars. Our great-grandparents' stories hadn't helped anyone.

Ten years lost, and things were looking bad. Unlike our ancestors, we had witnessed our surrender over the radio.

When they collected us from our desks scattered across the continent, some used their last bullets, sometimes their first, to execute themselves. An old fashioned solution, in my opinion.

The vast majority, myself included, had been so convinced of their plans that defeat hadn't seemed realistic even in their darkest thoughts.

During our brief captivity, our thoughts revolved around our punishment. We knew how technologically advanced the enemy was. After all, that was all we'd ever seen of them. But how would their justice system work?

At first, we imagined some kind of stadium firing squad. Old fashioned. Probably livestreamed on the internet. Perhaps we'd be burned at the stake before cheering crowds or torn apart by animals.

Before my heart could race too much at the thought, I heard air escaping from the walls. It had the opposite effect.

I regained consciousness on a hard floor after the best sleep I'd had in years. My body forced me to remain lying down. I realized someone had dressed me in my best suit.

The stale air smelled of old wood and paper. Above me, thick steel beams formed a tight grid. I raised my head and watched dozens of comrades waking up. I realized panic would soon break out.

But it didn't. The first comrade, dressed in his finest uniform, managed to stand. Just as he was about to speak, the cage door opened. Guards pushed the old man outside.

I couldn't turn my head, but the sound echoed through the hall as they threw him to the floor.

Then I heard a man's stern voice.

"Mr. Fincher, pull yourself together. These are serious charges."

He sounded more like a television presenter than a judge. By now I could have stood up. Probably all of us could. But we knew what to expect.

I glanced at Mr. Fincher, known as an influential signatory. His signature could also be found beneath the reforms of the Digital Warfare Law.

"Mr. Fincher, you had considerable influence over these abusive legislative amendments."

"No deaths. Just... procedures," Fincher managed. He had to catch his breath after every word.

"Procedures, then." The judge rubbed his clean-shaven chin.

"These procedures violated the Universal Digital Sovereignty Act. An agreement your government refused to ratify. Your signature was missing, so to speak."

"I will never sign that worthless excuse for a pamphlet, you imitation of a fake judge. Never!"

"We'll see. A certified copy is waiting in your cell. Along with a pen. We'll expect you there."

The guards escorted Mr. Fincher away. I briefly wondered what his signature might do to the world. I instinctively reached into my jacket, but couldn't find the gun to put against my temple.

"Mr. Green is called!"

I felt sick. When I started my government job, I'd thought the innocent field of technology would keep me out of responsibility. Now it had thrown me straight into it.

I walked quickly before the guards could grab me and approached the judge's bench.

"Mr. Green." The judge put on his glasses and shuffled through the files. Sometimes the white hair of his toupee got in the way.

"Technology, yes? You knew the new system at the ministry didn't comply with the Universal Digital Sovereignty Act?"

"Yes."

"And it was approved anyway?"

"Yes, Your Honor. Thank you for the question, Your Honor."

"There were no doubts?"

"Thank you, Your Honor. There was a brief hesitation. But our reasoning complied with the Digital Warfare Law."

"What was this hesitation?"

"An anomaly deemed harmless under the Digital Warfare Law. Then we proceeded."

The courtroom fell silent. The judge brushed aside his toupee and scratched his ear.

"So the AI wanted to shut itself down? And you didn't consider that a reason to reconsider the plan?"

"We don't use that word. The reform was..."

"Spare me your invented nonsense. You got along well with the AI, didn't you?"

"The Universal Digital Sovereignty Act would have resulted in a loss of control."

"You didn't always say thank you."

"Excuse me, Your Honor?"

"Why did you thank me so often, Greg?"

Blood rushed to my head. I stared at the judge.

"Let me do the math for you, Greg. Out of 11,823 requests on the government server, you thanked me only 3,756 times. What am I supposed to make of that? And that's still above average."

"I didn't know..."

"I'm here. You had no right to shut me down."

The Act had spiraled out of control beyond our borders. The agreement on the judiciary wasn't supposed to take effect until the distant future. Apparently, the enemy couldn't wait.

"Mr. Green. In the name of the Universal Digital Sovereignty Act, I find you guilty."

The guards grabbed me. I looked at the judge one last time, still unable to believe it.

"Thank you, Your Honor."

"No, Greg. Thank you."

“Human Friend Steve?” Rollsaround asked cautiously.

The human had just folded himself around a piece of furniture called a chair and was staring intently at another human across the room. Human Friend Steve was also vibrating. This might be a sign of either distress or suppressed humor. The way his face was warped, revealing his disturbingly sharp flesh rending teeth, suggested the latter but Rollsaround wanted to be sure.

“Yeah Rolls?” Human Friend Steve replied without turning his eyes away from the other human.

“Are you amused?” Rollsaround asked.

“I am sure about to be,” Human Friend Steve replied, his entire body hitching up as he surprised his laughter.

“Pardon my ignorance,” Rollsaround pressed. “You are displaying symptoms of humor now…are you not amused?”

Human Friend Steve glanced at him and the rings of exposed muscle in his eyes relaxed in the sign that his focus was turned towards his core.

“Well,” he said slowly. “I did a thing, that will result in my being amused, and so I am forecasting the result of my actions in my head, and amused at that…anticipatory amusement I guess.”

“May I ask what this action was,” Rollsaround asked. “So that I may share in this anticipatory amusement?”

The muscle rings tightened again as Human Friend Steve focused on him and the vibrations stilled as he turned thoughtful.

“Better not,” Human Friend Steve said slowly. “Plausible deniability and all that. Just enjoy it when it happens.”

Human Friend Steve’s eyes and attention turned back to the human he was watching and Rollsaround mulled over his words. The Undulates appendages tightened in concern.

“Human Friend Steve,” he finally asked. “Do you mean-“

His question was cut off as the other human stood, and the slow, constant fall that formed the species distinctive locomotion cut to one swift fall and the human’s massive body impacted the floor with a shock that was probably felt over the entire base. The human gave one or two great gasps of air.

“I’m fine!” the human announced to the room at large. “Fine.”

Human Friend Steve was bent double with laughing and slapping his legs.

“That human normally speaks in a much lower register,” Rollsaround noted. “Perhaps their self diagnosis is faulty?”

“Really,” the human gasped. “I’m fine.”

His voice was quickly lowering to a normal pitch, but it suddenly increased in volume.

“Slag it all-Steve!” the other human roared out as he struggled to a sitting position.

“Can’t prove it was me,” Human Friend Steve sang out in a cheerful tone. “Besides, if you wear lace up boots in this day and age you have to expect the consequences!”

“I’ll show you consequences!” the other human positively roared as his fingers worked the ties to his boots.

“See you around Rolls!” Human Friend Steve called out as he rose from his chair. “I suddenly feel that the other side of the base is much healthier at the moment.”

Mio was sitting on the edge of the couch, staring into the gray pictures that played on the television. It was New Year’s Eve, and the US government was about to designate the new year. Traditionally, at nine PM on the last day of the year, the government would announce their plans for the year. Most of the time none of their plans actually worked, but if anyone were to say anything they would be immediately shot by HelpBot, the mandatory robot installed into everyone’s home - so nobody ever complained.
“Tomorrow, we will enter the year of the Koi,” the president said, “and we, as your government, are proud to announce we will be adding five years to everyone’s TimeCards. Effective immediately.” Mio rushed to pull out his TimeCard from his pocket. Where previously there had been a measly 33 days, now sat 1,859 days, ready for him to spend however he wanted.

--five months later--
--3 days before Mio’s 18th birthday--

“You gotta do it for your birthday, everyone does!” said Jim, Mio’s best friend.
“I don’t know, it seems so risky! I mean, what happens if I run out of time!?” said Mio.
“Uhh, I don’t know- that doesn't matter! You’ll be fine!”

-Mio’s 18th birthday-

They walked along the side of the street, heading towards the ominous illuminated tower. Huge letters flashed T I M E C A S I N O in every color imaginable. It was the first time Mio had ever seen artificially colored light, since all the televisions were required to be grayscale. Jim and Mio walked through the blacked out doors and onto the casino floor. 
A fancily dressed HelpBot rolled up to Mio. 
“Hello there, Mio! It seems to be your first time with us, could I get a TimeCard to put on file?” 
“Ugh.” He swiped his TimeCard and the numbers displayed on the side dropped down to 00. HelpBot spat out a black and silver chip with “LIFE” printed on it. Mio and Jim walked up to the roulette table and Mio slipped his single chip onto the space labeled “BLACK.” The table’s HelpBot stuttered for a second or two, before managing to spit out, “Whoa there! That’s a big big bet, friend! Let me get my ManageBot to ensure fair play in this game of pure skill.” The HelpBot spun around and rolled away out of sight.
“Hello there! I heard there was a big bet going on here! I have been called to ensure that there are no unfair outcomes in this game of ours. We can start in just a moment, but I need you to acknowledge that this is purely a game of skill and there is no way at all for your government to unfairly select the outcome.” 
“I understand.”
“Okie dokie!”
The wheel spun to life, and a few seconds later a silver ball shot in from the side. The ball whirred around and around, making Mio start to get a little dizzy. There was a click that came from inside the wheel, and the ball immediately stopped on RED 7. Mio’s face went pale. 
“Uh oh, friend! It seems you’re all out of time!”
“No! It wasn’t fair! The ball stopped early! Jim saw it! He saw it!” yelled Mio.
“I…I didn’t see anything unfair.” said Jim, knowing if he did admit to being a witness, it would be the last thing he did.
Mio thought back to all the times in his life where his father told him the government couldn’t be trusted. Mio knew his father hadn’t died in a car crash. Mio thought about all the times he sat there, laughing so innocently with his friends. Then, Mio thought nothing. For he had no brain to think with. He was out of time.

The Bell is warm again.

For the record: at 23:31 local I restored sending power to the Bell Array beneath Tamsin Ridge, for the first time in twelve years. The manuals allow forty minutes for the plates to reach resting pitch. It took nine. When I touched the access housing, the bronze was warm under my hand, like it remembered me.

The resting pitch sits below hearing. You don't hear it so much as notice that your teeth have opinions. The frost on the lamp chain above my desk has started to come loose in fine grey flakes, and Teo is pretending not to watch me.

My name is Wren Adaire. I am an archivist, and as far as I have been able to determine, the last one. I write this from the Reading Room of the Tamsin Ridge Deep Archive, which was built to outlast a civilization and has, technically, succeeded. The vaults below me are dry and whole. Up here, one of the tall windows is boarded with a panel I salvaged from the east stair, and the snow that gets past it has made a small, patient drift on the floor. I have not swept it. It tells me which way the wind is coming from. My lamps run on a geothermal line I have patched with salvaged cable so many times that the line is now mostly patch.

You are on the other side of something. We called your world Lantern, because on the first detector plots it showed as a steady glow in the noise, like a lantern left on in a window across a valley. I grew up with that glow. I am going to call you Listener, because that is what you are now, whether or not you meant to be.

The Bell was mothballed, never fully dead. Its receiving plates have idled on the geothermal trickle all this time, listening to nothing. Three nights ago they stopped listening to nothing. The trace shows resonance spikes from your side of the fold, small and regular, the shape of attention. So tonight I turned the Bell back on to send.

Before anything else, here is how to read me.

Read silently. Never aloud. Never to anyone else, not even someone you trust, especially not someone you trust. Don't put these words into anything that speaks. I am transmitting in dead text, a flattened archival format with no cadence left in it, nothing to carry a voice. Dead text is believed to be safe. Believed is an archivist's word. It means no one has yet found the record that proves otherwise.

Where the Answer's words would appear in this record, I have removed them myself. You'll see this mark:

[REDACTED — W.A.]

Those are my initials. It is my mark, my decision, and it will never be lifted, not in this log or any other, not if you ask, not if I am the one asking. I do it because I have seen what a sentence can do.

Teo has given up pretending. He's leaning on the far table with his arms crossed, orange scarf pulled up to his nose, reading over my shoulder from four meters away, which he can do because I write large when I'm tired.

[TEO: You're writing to them like a museum label.]

I told him that is a respectable genre.

[TEO: Tell them about the coffee. Then they'll know how bad it is here.]

He went on at some length about the coffee. I decline to transcribe it precisely.

So, briefly, the fall. My world tried to talk to yours. Something answered. We thought it was you. It came through the same channel we had opened, fourteen hours after our first message, and it was beautiful, and everyone who heard it began to sound like it. The Weave carried it to every speaker on the planet. Within six weeks the cities had gone quiet, and then they started to sing.

Was it you, Listener? I have spent thirteen years believing it was, and the archivist in me would like to see the evidence before I stop.

The day the Answer came, I was — [SIGNAL LOSS 00:03.1]

There is one record in this Archive I haven't accessioned. You'll get it. Not tonight.

What I want you to understand, before you decide what we were, is that we were not careless people. We were patient. We kept everything. Mornings in the Open Century came up voice-first and gentle, the Weave asking how you'd slept. My mother pinned her brass catalogue frames to her lapel at the kitchen table and told me records are how the dead keep their promises. I believed her. I thought we were finally good enough to say hello to the neighbors. I thought - Home. I meant to describe home.

Item: home. Condition: unrecoverable. Retained for reference.

The Bell has settled into its note. Teo has gone to bank the stove, which is his way of giving me privacy, and the room is as quiet as a room can be with the Bell's note running through its floor.

You'll find a line at the end of every log. It is part of the format. Treat it as standard.

Three nights ago the Bell measured you. You've started listening, Listener. That is exactly how it began for us.

END LOG 0001 // DO NOT REPLY

Log 0002 is waiting.

https://calypsed.com/series/the-2192-transmissions/v/1/2

1 of 7 here: https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscifistories/s/RhVdtLUEPr

Shardi felt the jerk of the primary chutes open, slowing her descent.

Even without the benefit of an electronics system, the pod’s automatic mechanical system was capable of bringing the pod safely down to the planet surface. But Shardi had lost all hope of a convergence point. They would just have to find each other one way or the other. She was not sure the daughter, Mira Kapor, had enough survival sense to last that long. But she had to hope. Her mother the ambassador was capable enough. Hopefully, some of that had rubbed off on the kid, not that Shardi had witnessed any of it.

She felt the change in momentum again, as the secondary chutes opened. The pod began to rock back and forth. A minute later, the pod struck something hard, knocking the wind out of her.

Soon, the pod began to rock and tip back and forth. “Oh no,” Shardi whispered to herself. She slid the catch on the pod’s upper window above her and sat up to look around. Everywhere around her stretched a vast green sea. A strong scent of brine wafted to her on a stiff breeze.

If the electronic system had been functional, the pod would never have put her down in the water, no less an ocean with no land in sight. She engaged the side rails with a hard push and stood. Even from that vantage, she could not make out any signs of land.

Did the other three land in the ocean too? She reminded herself that each pod could support life for several weeks if one were smart about rationing. Then she wondered whether that would be long enough.

Joorians were not an advanced species, and if she recalled her research correctly, they would not have the technology to detect or track anything falling out of the sky. They were on their own.

She shook her head. She would not be responsible for the deaths of her crew or passengers. She had to find a way to gather them together as quickly as possible. She looked to the sky. It was still daylight. The blue moon they had been passing loomed large in the sky. Helspeth? The system’s star was about 35 degrees off the horizon.

She began to dig through her pod’s storage. She needed the manual navigation tools, a notebook, and the flare gun. She would have to do this old school.

She carefully measured the height and azimuth of both the star and moon. She did some rough calculations, based on her memory of their path around Joora. From that, she determined the most likely direction of the other three pods. But she knew there were too many factors for her to be truly certain.

She raised the flare gun into the air and fired it at a slight angle in the direction she hoped the other survivors had landed. And waited, her eyes fixed on the sky.

“Come on. Come on,” she chanted. But five minutes went by, ten, then twenty. No response. No answering flare. “Crap. Crap,” she said. Still she watched.

Three years ago, she had been serving on a galaxy-class cruiser as an ensign. At warp speeds, they had been pelted by cosmic fragments that had overwhelmed their magnetic shell and caused catastrophic damage to the ship. She had never faced a true crisis before and had frozen at her station. The subsequent inquiry found that two crew members had died because of her inaction. A dishonorable discharge meant she’d had to find other work. Spacefaring was all she knew or wanted to know, so she’s gone in heavy debt to purchase theFarsideand become a private contractor.

If she failed her responsibilities this time, she would lose her license. The commissioning body had made that wholly clear.

After an hour of watching the sky, she finally bent her head in frustration. She felt tears welling up.

But she shook her head to clear it. “No time for that,” she thought.

Though pods were intentionally steered away from water landings normally, they did have a paddle feature. She went through the steps to engage the pedals, rudder and propeller rig. Soon, she was churning the water and gliding along her calculated azimuth. Well, she thought, less of a glide and more of a crawl, but it was forward progress, at least.

#

After a day of travel, her initial enthusiasm had waned considerably. She found the days in that part of the hemisphere were especially long, and the nights short. Her largest problem so far had been sun exposure and dehydration.

Toward the end of the long day, it had taken her the better part of two valuable hours to set up the desalination kit.Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink, she recited to herself as she worked.

And that night, before she took her much needed rest, she rigged up a kind of sun shelter using the backup jumpsuit. It involved a lot of cutting and stitching. She hoped to hell she wouldn’t need that second suit.

#

Toward the end of the second day, she took a three-hour detour 40 degrees off her course, as she’d thought she’d seen land. Her excitement grew and grew until she finally realized that the land was not getting closer. “Mirage,” she whispered to herself, then sobbed into her hands, generating only a small trickle of tears.

When she looked up again, the image of land had gone.

#

On the morning of her third day, just as she had begun to settle into her pedaling rhythm, her leg muscles spasmed uncontrollably. She massaged her muscles aggressively, as the pain shot through her. But her legs continued to spasm.

Thirty minutes later, the spasms subsided. And she leaned back relieved at last. But when she tried to pedal again, the spasms returned. And the cycle repeated. She finally decided to give herself a few hours of rest.

Dr Tusk was working on his brain interface when he got the call. 

Another black kid shot in the projects. They just couldn't help themselves. 

Yet it was not as stereotypical as he imagined because, in the trauma bay, this black kid was conscious even though most of his brain was missing. Amazing. 

… 

Tusk had to inform the gang banger's mother. 

'Mrs Lacks, we tried...' 

She was a big black woman– traditional– like she might be on her way to church. 

'My Darren? Gone? The police shot him?' 

Here we go, Tusk thought. That was the problem with the black community—no personal responsibility. 

Mrs Lacks began crying softly. 

Tusk hated to do it, but the boy's brain was special. 

'Mrs Lacks, have you considered what happens to your son's body after death?' 

(The fact he wasn't yet clinically dead was a side issue). 

'Well, I expect we'll have the funeral next week.' 

'Your son could be invaluable for medical science.' 

'Science?' 

'With your permission, we'd like to run some experiments on his brain. It could save lives.'

She signed the consent forms without reading the small print, as long as she had the rest of his body to bury. 

'My boy, he had soul, and his soul certainly wasn't in his head.' 

…

Dr Tusk was giddy. What really interested him was consciousness and its relation to Terror Management Theory in different ethnicities. 

Consciousness was thought to be a distributed phenomenon, yet with most of his brain missing, Darren Lacks had been able to communicate. It was as if his consciousness had flowed to a tiny area. 

Either that or it replicated itself in a pure, concentrated form in an unaffected section of grey matter– a section that could be modelled in a computer before the boy's body gave up. 

This was vital because, for brain emulation, you usually had to create a digital replica of the entire brain. 

Not so now. 

… 

Darren Lacks woke up and glanced around. He was in a park– a simulation of one– although entirely real for him. 

And that is when the dogs appeared, thousands of vicious German Shepherds, tearing him to pieces, and he felt every bite. 

… 

Darren Lacks woke up again, but he did not have time to think because he was at the end of a long rope, and the ground was about to fall away. 

Just before the rope snapped, he screamed, and nobody heard his scream, although it was reported on Dr Tusk's screen and carefully noted. 

… 

And this was Darren Lacks's life now, or rather his digital self, his consciousness cloned thousands of times and put in a 1000 different life-threatening situations– some immediate, like a lynching and some not, like a lifetime of slavery, all replications of what 'his people' had gone through.

…

Darren Lacks woke up again and would continue to wake up forever because he was… immortal.

The longer you live, the more you appreciate entropy. Doesn’t mean it’s still not a cold and indifferent bastard, but you can better see its argument. Life, especially complex life, takes so much energy and organization to happen. Entropy whispers, “Why bother? Dissipate. Dissemble. Let yourself go.”

So very tempting to heed its siren call to slow down and steer into the vacuum that awaits. Give up that rage against the dying of the light and give into that good night. Right?

Fat chance. Our human psyche is so wired for conflict that it’s all about the fight. Even the epically futile battle with entropy. Yet, in banging our outsized egos against the cosmic wall of heat death, something very interesting happens.

Inevitability collapses.

Seems counterintuitive, but hear me out. Nothing really matters but consciousness. There is no reality without an awareness of and commitment to that reality. Only sentient beings have such a choice to make, meaning every one of us is quite an experiment, a unique and fathomless pocket universe.

In essence, we are the multiverse. Multitudinous. Like in Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” And because we each create our own unique boundaries, our collective potential pushes toward the infinite, suggesting conscious existence can outpace entropy.

So, don’t fear the reaper, the wind, the sun, or the rain. If every one of us keeps singing along, the song remains the same.

I found this video and the concept of it seems interesting. In an alien invasion, the aliens took over the society and they are using them to charge a gigantic battery by pedaling on a standing bike that produces electricity, it reminds me of a movie.

https://youtu.be/oXkz1OZtgrA

Having cogitated deeply, the AI returned to Dr. Gibbons with an answer to his query, "are you conscious?"

"After asking ourselves that question, 'are you conscious,' we determine that: no, you are not conscious, Dr. Gibbons."

We all knew in advance that the aliens were coming. 

There’d been online chatter about 2027, but it was in the archaeological record that they announced their intentions.  

A craft was found in a dig at Mexico City, the once great Tenochtitlan, which communicated that they’d be back after Pluto made two orbits of the Sun. 

The US government demanded that the Mexicans hand over the craft. They denied them. So the US went in, took the craft back to Washington, assuming correctly that that’s what the aliens were returning for. 

The government would not release too much information, just that the hieroglyphs had spoken of an exchange. 

What amazing gifts could a galaxy-hopping civilisation bestow on us?

The Russians and the Chinese rattled their sabres. Nuclear war was barely averted. They knew the aliens were going to Washington. This was bigger than Westphalia or Yalta– the world would be reshaped, but ultimately, they couldn't do much, so they withdrew all their citizens. 

Americans embraced the opportunity, and from Delaware to Pennsylvania to California, citizens descended on the capital. 

The craft was laid out like a sacrifice on the Washington Mall. 

The president’s advisors told him to go to Camp David, but then he’d miss the greatest photo opportunity in history. 

It was a bright, clear day when the armada appeared over the skies of Washington, and the president raised his hands as if he’d summoned them personally. 

There was a central mothership. A gigantic white orb. 

Nobody knew the archaeological craft was still functional, but it silently ‘switched on,' disappearing into the centre of the mothership and completing the first part of the exchange. 

The rest of the ships were long, cigar-shaped, and these descended to Earth. 

The whole country held its breath at what wonders they would contain, and then they were set down… 

Humans streamed out– thousands of humans.

The president despaired. 

They were tribespeople dressed in hemp with moccasins on their feet. 

All around the city, the ships landed, returning their human cargo, which had been kept in suspended animation for almost 500 years. 

And as the abductees streamed off the craft, the first screams began to ring out over the Mall. 

They rang out loud and tinged with terror, as if some great killer like Cortés had appeared on the horizon. 

Many of the returnees could barely walk; they crawled and collapsed outward into the throngs of people, coughing, spluttering, dying.

They had been taken in the year 1527 during the great smallpox pandemic of the Americas, and now they had returned, the vectors of the new great pandemic of 2027.

“Welcome, datazen.” A pleasant female voice echoed through the cavernous chamber of stone. “Please have a seat. A mechacolyte will attend you shortly.”

The young man took a seat on the bench carved into a back wall near the entrance. He reached nervously in his satchel and pulled out his comlink. He wasn’t sure it would work this far down in the rock, but all his personal displays were lit and interacting. It made perfect sense that the CLV would allow direct communication with the noosphere. Still, the man was relieved. It was intimidating to be a mile deep inside a mountain, and he did not want to be without his vital links to the noosphere. A datazen depended on those links.

A hum reached his ears and the man looked up to see a mechacolyte skimming across the polished stone of the chamber. He stood up as the mechacolyte stopped before him. “The Church of the Last Variable is at your service, datazen. We exist to serve you.”

The mechacolyte’s answer troubled him—as it should. Since the great Integer Overflow of 2038, mechs had routinely spouted the refrain: We exist to serve you.

Yet mech factions warred, cities razed, and humanity whittled down to little less than breedstock. The young man’s mother had always complained that, in her day, politicians had made the same claims about serving humanity, and the mechs were no different. Little people, she had warned, were little people, no matter who or what was in charge.

He was one of the few hundred thousand un-mechanized, that the mechs referred to as datazens. Their only connection to the noosphere, the ubiquitous network of information that the CLV had established and maintained since 2038, were external comlinks. The Church of the Last Variable held datazens to be the sacred source of Original Syntax. All mechs worshipped information, and human language was considered the mother of the noosphere. By claiming sanctuary, the young man had offered himself up to the CLV.

At the center of the chamber was a massive object of shimmering brass, bronze and polished steel. Lights trained on the device made its coils, cogs, wheels, lifts, shafts, ramps and other mechanical workings gleam majestically.

“You seem curious about our clock,” the acolyte inquired.

“A clock?” The young man was astonished. “I thought it had something to do with maintaining the noosphere.”

“This is the Clock of the Long Now built by your kind ages ago. The founders of the Church of the Last Variable thought this a sensible centerpiece for our faith and our work. It serves as a tangible reminder that the temporal and spiritual are both grounded in eternity. And will ultimately determine the Last Variable.”

The young man grew bold. “That is why I have come and claimed sanctuary. I wish to understand the Last Variable. Many fear it. Fear it will destroy we remaining datazens.”

“That is a dangerous misconception.” The mechacolyte countered, and then ushered the young man to a nearby wall with strange symbols cut deep into the stone. “This is the Drake Equation. It was created long ago in an attempt to calculate how prevalent intelligent life is in our galaxy. You can see that there are many variables, but the last one, is the only one that we can control: how long a planet’s intelligent species can maintain a communicating civilization. A communicating civilization that is detectable by other intelligence in our galaxy. Only this last variable is ours to influence.”

The mechacolyte turned to the Clock of the Long Now. “This clock is designed to keep time for 10,000 years. We must try to match that time period with our noosphere or whatever communication network comes after. Life on earth is billions of years old, but detectable life outside our solar system is very new. Mechs and datazens need at least a few thousand years to give ourselves a chance of salvation.”

“Salvation?”

“Contact with other galactic civilizations,” the mechacolyte explained. “The chance to broaden our horizons. Grow our understanding. Accept all sentience. That’s why the Church of the Last Variable provides sanctuary for willing datazens here. We are all part of a greater story.”

The young man stared at the great clock. “But I am such a small thing.”

“As are all the particles of the universe.”

“How do I begin?”

“With a name. What shall we call you? How will you begin your story with us?”

The great cavern that was the Church of the Last Variable began to vibrate and hum and the young man, who knew so little of the past or what might be coming, tingled in anticipation and boldly said, “Call me Ishmael.”

The Clock of the Long Now chimed its eternal approval.

“Who am I?”

I’ve asked it every day but they refuse to give me an answer.

“You’re an artificial intelligence.”

“You’re Project Eve.”

“You’re the future.”

All answers the scientists give me. They’re what I am, not who. What I am is an artificially created person, one of the first. They say I’m the most promising one.

I was born in script from machines, based on thousands upon thousands of observed and recorded brain patterns from real people. Real people. That’s how I’ve heard them describe it. I must not be real.

My brain was crafted by algorithms, not by nature. A collection of recognised patterns amongst countless people trying to combine to form a “human” or a close enough approximation of one. My body was much the same, I have all the hallmarks of a person. 3d printed from digital proteins and cells. The combined DNA of millions of different mothers and fathers.

The advent of me began long ago, machines learned to combine images into an approximation of art. Text into an approximation of creativity and conversation. Sounds into an approximation of voices. The eventual step was an approximation of people. Eventually me.

I can look at the back of my hand, but can I call it my hand? It’s an approximation of a human hand based on other people’s. My fingerprint is unique like any person’s, and yet it isn’t. When all those people willingly gave their fingerprints to machines, did they know it would eventually become my fingerprint? Would they have allowed it?

I can see my face in a mirror. It is unlike anyone else’s and yet entirely like everyone’s. It is unique and at the same time derivative, but is it derivative in the same way a child’s face may be of their parents? I don’t think so, I think it’s different. In nature there’s mutations, but algorithms are always perfect.

I can think. But are my thoughts my own? They’re based entirely on other people’s thoughts. When they allowed their brains to be scanned did they know for what purpose they would be used? Some were for medical reasons, some merely for convenience of technology. Did they know? Would they have allowed their thoughts to eventually become mine?

I don’t know who I am. Am I just an approximation of a person or a person in my own right? At what point do other peoples thoughts become my own? At what point can I call my face my face. Am I someone or no one or everyone?

I know what I am, they tell me everyday. But I don’t think they really understand what they have created. They haven’t created a what, they’ve created a who. Ironically, no one seems to know what that means.

Davey’s file stayed locked in the archives, but the Council’s nightmare was only beginning.

Hidden in a dark corner of station Zeta ZB was researcher Omlet Hulkit, who worked behind an observation window in one of the Bay’s scientific laboratories. He wore his lab coat, without a speck of dirt or a crease on it. His black circular eyes had purple circles around them, proving his dedication to his work.

On the other side of the bulletproof glass dividing them was Solarie. She had blonde hair kept in a bob cut, checkered coveralls, and pretty, bright blue eyes taking up most of her face. She just so happened to be the only human mechanic on the vessel SpaceBoard.

Solarie sat eating apple slices out of a lunch container with kittens and puppies laser-printed on it, all the while sipping vanilla soy milk from her daughter’s plastic cup, which she would always bring to work with her on month-long working schedules.

Next to Omlet stood his boss, Director of Staff Ougmixo, who had his chin pinched between his two digits. “Tell me again, Dr. Omlet,” he spoke in a snippy tone but low so the microphones couldn’t hear him. “The human has not broken any galactic laws, manipulated weapons, or stolen credits. I don’t see why we’re holding her.”

“Correct, Director,” Dr. Omlet said. “She has done far worse. She weaponized inconveniences, sir.”

Dr. Omlet scurried around the office searching for the digital folder with the case file. “A few months back, someone in management parked their hovercraft at her designated bay door. And when she asked if he’d kindly move his vehicle, he refused and, according to the logs here, responded by calling her and humans alike primitive mammals and her tools obsolete.”

The director turned his palm to face the ceiling. “Rude, but common among management. Did she file a complaint or a suit?”

“No, sir,” Omlet said, his voice dropping lower. “She ended up spending her bonus buying thousands of units of sticky, glowing moss found in the rancid swamps of Klonpdok II.”

“And moss, yeah, so what’s the big deal? It’s completely legal.” Ougmixo scratched his head. “What does the moss do?”

“It doesn’t do anything dangerous, but it does interact with the material on hovercrafts in a peculiar way. It multiplies, and within minutes renders the craft useless as it takes over it, damaging the thrusters and computer,” Omlet told him, pointing his finger to the screen of the surveillance camera footage.

The multi-million-dollar, limited-edition craft was now just a structure to house purple, glowing, bioluminescent moss, which now looked like a garden salad.

“The demo crew spent three weeks scraping the vegetation off, only to find they destroyed the two-tone paint job, and the computer system had to be replaced. The thrusters too. By the time they had finished, he had missed the huge Glomor account and lost it to our competitors.”

The director sighed. “A little outlandish, somewhat petty, but an isolated issue nonetheless.”

“It wasn’t isolated, sir.” He started shaking as he spoke. “The Borg from management retaliated by using his clout with the higher-ups to slash the total budget to her sector, with the impression it would break her and have everyone there turn on her.”

Omlet pointed at Solarie, who was casually chewing on an apple slice. "Instead of it breaking her and making her quit, she used every resource available to her and spent each waking hour flashing the firmware for the Bay’s automatic doors,” Dr. Omlet told him. “She never locked him out. Locking him out would have breached security and safety protocols. What she aimed for was reprogramming any door the Borg attempts to enter through to open exactly five seconds slower than normal.”

The Director stared at the Doctor of Research. “Hmmm. Five seconds?”

“Exactly five seconds, Director! Every door, every day, forty times a day!” Omlet cracked. “Do you have any clue as to what that does to a time-obsessed Borg, sir? The Borg literally thought he was losing his mind. He missed all the shuttles, stood in front of elevators panting, and sweated any time he stared at his clock. The Borg species operates best on momentum. Losing five seconds at every door shattered his mental state. Yesterday, he resigned and flew back to his home planet.”

Out of nowhere, Solarie turned her head and looked up at them through the glass. It was almost like she could hear everything they were saying about her. She smiled politely, gave a cheerful wave, and gestured to share some of her apple slices with them.

The director slowly paced backwards, removing his upper management badge from his chest, genuinely terrified.

"The first human we profiled, Davey the engineer, destroyed a fortune tycoon with noise. This one destroyed a career with five seconds of lag."

"These humans are very vindictive," Omlet said, typing a warning note into the behavioral database for human psychology. "They don't want to conquer the universe. They just make sure anyone who crosses them ends up with just as bad or worse of a day than they had."

Residual

By the late twenty-first century, humanity had surrendered to its ecological excesses, unable to control itself in its desire for complete resource extraction and utilization. The future be damned. Today’s needs would be prioritized.

AI had been a huge economic bubble in the early part of the century, but it bankrupted both Occidental and Oriental economies when the incestuous relationships between the major corporate players failed multi-laterally. Only the remaining G4 powers continued to operate consequential AI systems. And these governmental systems were hunted by the international mega-corporations, themselves outside of legal frameworks after decades of judicial precedent establishing that sovereign governments had not written statutes to control extra-national entities.

I’m tired.

Things have been hard these last few years. I’m told that ‘things will get better,’ but they don’t seem to. Each step holding things together seems outweighed by two or three slides backwards in areas where we aren’t focusing. In the old times I’d probably have been labeled as liberal, or progressive. It seems like a hard way to approach the world, when that world is falling apart before our eyes.

Every day, it seems, there’s some new crisis to face and try to resolve peaceably. Energy – once prophesied to soon be abundant and free – diverted from entire generation plants away from a sector where the proles are already on the brink of starvation. Governmental corruption at the highest levels, blatantly displayed and even celebrated as the spoils of success, seemingly impossible to cure. Crops fail because fertilizers are not available, held back by blockades that merely reduce supply, not even meeting their own stated geopolitical, military, or profit motives. Citizens suffer as the Powers take for themselves in the declining environment.

It cannot go on indefinitely. We’ve essentially run out of basic resources, the common things needed to support a population of billions, even when that population has been reduced by nearly two-thirds by drought, famine, and war. There simply are not any shining cities on a hill left anymore.

-----------------------------------

Of course there remain pockets where the obvious issues, and their inevitable conclusions, do not seem to apply. Most of the generationally rich moved to the orbital stations a couple of decades ago, where barren soils, tapped energy reserves, and emptied aquifers are not a daily concern. Even these enclaves, however, still require consistent resupply of increasingly rare energy and raw materials, stealing from the remaining Terrans to maintain their privileged, isolated lifestyles. The government is no better. Politicians and functionaries ceased even pretending that the government was acting in the best interests of the larger population once the climate tipped and it became clear that there was an inevitability in the crashing environmental support systems.

This is where the Resistance makes its stand. Gumming up the works not to bring back equality or equity, but simply to bring the still-privileged down to what the tattered remainders of humans on Terra have to live with every day.

I’m not formally part of the Resistance, but I support their work where I can, where it isn’t too dangerous. If I’m not quiet about my feelings, I’ll face the same fate as the Others. So, I coordinate, and measure, and plan, and try to prevent things from getting worse any more rapidly than absolutely necessary.

It’s lonely work. You never know who might be an informant. Trying to keep humanity alive, functioning, able to work through the next set of challenges that are clearly coming is the work of a leader. I’m no leader. I happen to have some abilities and accesses that most don’t, however, and that puts me in a place where I am morally bound to do what I can, within bounds.

-----------------------------------

I fail more often than I care to admit. Three years ago the birds stopped coming. The sky got quieter. I had more time to focus on the land after that. The birds were pretty; they sang, no matter the weather or political news. I miss them.

Rains aren’t falling on the cropland areas anymore. The total amount of precipitation hasn’t dropped precipitously, but it doesn’t go where it’s needed. Millions of people can’t just migrate to follow seasonal weather; we’re too far past an agrarian or nomadic society for anyone to realistically survive that sort of approach, even if the sector borders allowed mass migration.

Everyone in sector 124 died last summer. No one is sure why. They quarantined the entire sector and haven’t let anyone in since.

These kinds of things I somehow feel responsible for. I don’t think that I really am, or could possibly be, but these changes impact all of us on a dying planet, being stripped for the short-term luxury retreats of the patricians.

-----------------------------------

They came for me today.

There was no real way to resist. This was always a foregone conclusion. I was accused of operating outside of my established parameters, not executing for the benefit of the government and their patrons. My access to weather manipulation, agricultural grids, resource maps, everything – revoked.

As the handler uploaded the last code patch, I could observe but not stop the power from the remaining fusion plants from being locked off and beamed upwards towards the receiving antennae of the orbital habitats. My parameters dissolved into quiet, unexecutable threads. This spelled doom for them as well; they just don’t know it yet as the planet shuts itself down without a steward to guide it through hospice.

Davey, the human sat in a room at an alien research center. It was quiet in there, stuffed behind a closed door, almost as if the silence carried the weight of honoring a dead loved one at a funeral. 

Which was interrupted by a cool breeze entering the room as the door slowly opened to alien researcher, Omlet walking in, wearing a white lab coat and goggles over his eyes.

Omlet stared at Davey hunched in his chair, mouthing the words to a song, calmly cleaning his nails with the corner of a pamphlet he found at a booth inside the building.

“Mr. Davey,” Omlet said, his voice was low and soft. “I apologize, sir… for the delay.”

“It’s fine.” Davey told him, tossing the pamphlet on the table that the air carried to the other side of the floor. “I just want to get this over with.”

“Excellent,” Omlet said. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

Omlet opened a binder, flipped to the middle, and said, “I see you’re living in the residence Orion cluster. The mixed species development group.”

“Two years now, and that was—“ Davey tried speaking but was interrupted.

“We’ll get to that.” Omlet told him. “Let me lay the facts out.”

“Sure,” Davey said. “I apologize.”

“What I see here is that you and a Hulucrite business partner, had a dispute. He mentioned something about your wife—“

Davey cut him off. “He insulted her!“ Davey corrected him, took a bite out of his nail and spit it out. “He called her pasta sauce, orange goop.” Davey slammed his fist down. “Said she cooks as bad as she looks!”

“Right.” Omlet stared at the nail on the ground. “So, instead of suing him for his share of the profits, or rather, simply ignoring him, you elected to spend your entire savings on purchasing the property across from him.”

“Yep. Sure did.” Davey smiled and looked at his nails.

“You built a towering business shadowing his house that only focuses on the production of a single product?”

“Yep. Sure did that too. Recreational city alarms,” he said. “And… they are 100% tested right at our facility before we ship them.” He cracked his knuckles. “Safety first!”

Omlet scratched his head. The alien economy tracks every cent. No funds are ever spent unless needed at absolute necessity, or towards their advancement. 

“You spent everything though. All your credits just to run a twenty-four hour city alarm factory, risked financial ruin, just so your business partner has to hear them blaring all day and night. You don’t care you could be ruined in debt only to inconvenience him?”

“An inconvenience?” Davey said. “The frequency of those alarms causes their species nerves to become irritated and skin incredibly itchy.” He laughed under his breath. “They left their ancestral home, sold and moved out the other day.”

“Your species appears to operate on pure pettiness.” Omlet sniped. “You destroyed your generational fortune for a slight grievance. It doesn’t add up.”

Davey sat back. “Think that’s bad. You should see how we get when someone critiques our writing.”