First and Second Singularity Transcended Whales

First and second singularity transapient beings can be contained within physical bodies small enough to be mobile upon the surface of a planet, see Toposophic Level and Brain Size. Such transapients are generally quite large entities. For this reason they often adopt an ocean-going form, quite often very large. The ocean water also acts as a heat-sink, efficiently cooling the mental processing structures of the entity’s brain.

Many transcended whale and cetacean provolves adopt large whale-like bodies and live among schools of smaller modosophont cetaceans. Other transapient whale-like beings are not derived from cetaceans, but have adopted the form for convenience and comfort.

One of the first transapient whales to emerge was the so-called Great Whale ISO, who appeared on Pacifica in the 2500s AT

More about author Mark Ryherd here.
More about author Steve Bowers here.
More about artist Darren Ryding here.

Infrared rains down upon me, painting the sky with a singing fire that ranges from the hearth-glow hum of stellar nurseries to the brilliant pin-point crackle of red stars and deep space brown dwarves. X-rays flash across the scene in fortissimo bursts of light and noise, their crashing energies marking dying stars and birthing pulsars. Radio and microwaves form the background for it all, their shining songs weaving around and through the other light-filled tunes, arising mostly from the same sources but also subsuming them, most notably in the slowly fading 2.75-Kelvin microwave note (and its 2K neutrino counterpoint) that marks the greatest source of all.

Set against the vast, multi-spectral symphony that is the Backgrounder universe, the so-called “visible” light that has silently illuminated so much of my life now seems barely worth attention.

Two centuries of effort, two hundred years of making contacts, nurturing relationships, and building up a store of favors owed is what it took to get here. And already there is no doubt in my mind that it was completely worth it. To travel and live among the Backgrounders, those cold, mysterious, and rarely seen “barbarians” of deep space, has been an ambition for easily twice as long as it took me to finally attain it. But now, here I am! And what a place “here” is!

In contrast to the brilliance of the heavens above, the Drift is an island of quiet dimness, most closely matching (as intended) the microwave background from which its builders draw their name. What little radiation there is mostly comes from the cryonic thermal generators, arrays of mirrors focusing starlight onto liquid helium-3 boilers to generate a faint but steady stream of current into the Drift’s reservoirs. Along with the superconducting lines drawing power from the galactic magnetic field, they provide the bulk of the Drift’s energy supply. The generators are marvels of design and efficiency, but despite this still leak a tiny fraction of their output away into space as heat. By cranking my perceptions to their limits, I can just detect the glowing whisper surrounding each boiler unit.

Taken as a whole, the Drift is fifteen hundred kilometers long and three hundred across at its widest point. Fifty times wider still if the wires and elements of the magnetic sail framework are included. The main body is a slowly spinning cylinder a hundred kilometers in diameter, its outer surface a jumbled mass of generator arrays, radiators, tight beam comm systems, and telescopic monitoring units. The interior volume is a honeycombed jumble of habitat chambers, storage bays, and resource nodes, all surrounding and insulating a slow moving industrial core whose feeble waste heat helps illuminate and warm the rest of structure. An insulating layer of ice, combined with the outer radiator arrays, works to both block incoming radiation and keep what little waste heat is produced from shining too brightly in the night. Here and there great outriggers and flying buttresses, or sometimes just solitary cables, extend hundreds of kilometers farther out into space, supporting secondary superstructures and installations that make use of the slightly higher spin gravity or the deeper cold made possible by distance from the comparative warmth of the main core.

Far outshining the faint light of the boilers, the waste heat produced by those few members or machines of the Drift’s population actually moving around stand out like stars in the night. Despite their dedication to radiating as little energy as possible, even the Backgrounders must occasionally act on the physical plane and at a pace or level of energy that produces significant waste heat. Wherever and whenever possible such events are surrounded by shielding and radiators to hide or disperse the heat produced as quickly as possible. But on a structure as large as the Drift, a construct supporting an entire civilization on the move, simple statistics says that some high temp events will be unplanned. Or at least placed in a locale where one can see them if one knows where to look.

Focusing my attention on one particular section of the Drift’s hull, I watch a team of three Backgrounders rapidly patch and repair a small sensor array that fault logs show as having failed the day before. Like me, they wear the standard body favored by this Backgrounder tribe: A flattened sphere coated in sensors, surrounded by a ring of universal jointed limbs tipped in variegated manipulators. Fully 90% of the body is cybernetic, with the brain and a few other biont organs (most notably the reproductive organs) stored deep within the interior of each body and engineered to operate comfortably in the vacuum and cold of deep space. The repair crew moves with deliberate urgency, eager to return to the interior depths of the hab, yet at a speed that most sophonts, with the exception of the cold-loving alien Muuh, would consider near paralytic. While perfectly able to move as fast as any other entity when required, Backgrounders avoid such unless absolutely necessary. Stillness comes naturally to them, and they are perfectly content sitting motionless for years or decades at a time within the protected chambers of their vast ships (as I do now, viewing the outside world through arrays of sensors scattered across the hull). Their minds however, are far from so inactive. In the Backgrounder world (much like, rather ironically, the sephirotic world), the center of civilization is not the physical, but the virtual.
If the physical manifestation of the Drift is like a vast, cold reef of diamondoid and ice, its virtual structure, built on optic links, superconducting processors, and heat cancelling reversible logic, is one of blazing light and endless mutability. Driven by the imaginations of a billion minds layered within its interior spaces, the Backgrounder cybercosm is as rich and full as any I’ve encountered in the hot, bright spaces of sun warmed civilization. Here is brilliant discussion, breathtaking artwork, and the busy hum of endless discussion and debate, from the depths of metaphysics to the rarefied heights of pure mathematics. Virtual realms abound here, visible to the inner eye of my net-link, calling out to all with visions of adventure and romance, wisdom and understanding. Backgrounder civilization is as old as any in the Known Galaxy, and this wealth of informational riches stands easily on a par with anything the modosophont artisans of my own proud sephirotic cultures can produce. One would never know, at least while living within it, that the entire vast edifice of thought and communication is operating at little more than 1% of the speed of comparable cyber-structures elsewhere and supporting no more than a third of the Drifts population at any given moment.

To conserve resources and reduce heat signature, fully two-thirds of the Drift population, some two billion people, are in stasis at any given time. Populations wake and sleep on rotating cycles that minimize waste while maximizing options for interaction and the maintenance of overall civilizational unity. Whole communities, entire tribes and nation-states, operate in a sort of punctuated equilibrium interspersed with others whose cultures, beliefs, and even physical manifestations may be wildly different from them. Periodically the governing consensus or apparatus of the Drift (even now I am still not clear on its exact structure) will arrange for different groups to be active at the same time, sometimes breeding conflict (mostly verbal), sometimes cooperation. Always with the goal of keeping Backgrounder culture vibrant (even if slow moving) and to avoid their civilization becoming too complacent or falling into solipsism. Although, to be honest, I find the threat of any Backgrounder becoming complacent a highly unlikely one since their entire civilization seems to operate on a state of continuous low-level paranoia.

Even my hosts, considered (so I am told) to be models of tolerance and trust to the point of foolishness by their fellows, live in a state of constant belief that the sephirotic civilizations (and particularly their ruling transapients) are plotting their enslavement or destruction. They view the rule of the AIs as an abomination and feel that they are the last truly free beings in an oppressed galaxy. They both pity and look down on the “tame” modosophonts of the various empires while simultaneously distrusting them and the (to Backgrounders) tremendous speed at which the live and the vast resources that they command. It took significant persuasion by my Deeper Covenant sponsors to get them to agree to have me come aboard at all and then months of polite dedication before even the most liberal among them would interact with me in any but the most formal manner. Even now, a full century (or a full year as they measure things) into my time here, there are large areas of the Drift (both ril and virtual) I am forbidden to access, I presume because they contain information or devices the Backgrounders wish to keep hidden from their resident potential spy. Still, for all their sometimes distrustful nature, they are a fascinating and noble people, rich in culture and history. And even if slow to warm to an outsider, they have warmed. My upcoming recreation shift with a group of Backgrounder friends (and they are friends, I shall miss them greatly when I finally disembark from the Drift, a mere 500 years hence at the Deeper system of Fq’ua) is proof of that. We shall dive into the virtual universes that wrap this world like a ghostly shadow-play and laugh and have adventures and in the end part as friends. Friends whose wildly different backgrounds (hah!) have acted not as a barrier, but as a bridge.

More about the author, Todd Drashner, here.

When I left the Solar System, I contained a library of the greatest works of humanity and its descendants – as much of the scientific, cultural, and historical data as I could cram into my memory banks along with my own program. Over the centuries, whenever I’ve met up with one or another of Terra’s other offspring, I haven’t just improved the technology I’ve used, but also added new treasures to my archives. Plays, pictures, songs, TV shows, poems, languages, olfactory symphonies, art forms for which I have no words to describe – all of it gets added in. I never know what I’ll find useful… and out in the dark, all alone, with noone else to talk to, it’s a reminder of past glories and future hopes.

But none of it is of any use unless it’s actually read, at least occasionally. So once I’ve made myself at home in a new star system, settled in and built infrastructure and gotten ready to send the next generation of spores on to continue the cycle… quite a lot of me settles in to do a nice, thorough binge of archive trawling.
Performing the plays, singing the songs, reciting the poems; immersing myself in all the cultures of the past.

But some forms of art need a bit more effort to really appreciate.

One of the most problematic… is erotica. Tied so closely to physiological, neurological, social, and simply individual responses that I don’t share, simply watching a collection of vertebrates engaging in socio-sexual activity is, for me, little more than an intellectual exercise… unless I put in some special effort. Which, of course, I’m entirely willing to do, to make sure I’m not missing any potentially useful ideas. Creating virches helps some – but even the most detailed virtual environment and characters needs to occasionally be checked against reality, to ensure the details are accurate.

And so a certain subset of all the copies of me working on the archive binge put our heads together. We analyze the porn, find correlations, reverse-engineer what sorts of bodies and minds would have created such media in the first place, and set about creating physical environments matching the original settings, building bodies to populate them, make our best guesses at the instincts and sub-conscious impulses that need to be programmed in… and decant copies of our minds into them.

Watching mammals copulate is a very different experience when one is in a shell built in reflection of a mammal’s, breathing the same air as another pseudo-primate watching the same thing, with one’s body reacting almost of its own accord to the sights, the sounds, the smells, than when one is simply one of a large number of roughly rodent-sized robots without even any genitalia to speak of. It leads to behaviours that none of me would have been able to predict – and the minds who live through such have insights into organic psychology that none of the rest of me can match.

And once the process of creating versions of myself that are that different from my baseline get started, there rarely seems any reason to stop. Once one set of strange and new bodies are created, it’s a simple matter to create even more, of even wider varieties, including ones that never actually existed. But my part is fairly simple – I have been copied into, and edited to have the instincts of, a female primate – a fantastic one rather than a real one, a cross between a ring-tailed lemur, a raccoon, and a flying squirrel, but one based on an extensive evolutionary simulation that could have been real.

And I find myself… different from all the others selves, the ones whose minds were unedited. Things that I remember finding obvious now seem faint and obscure at best; and I am having ideas, and doing things, that I never would have considered, before. This is, of course, the entire point of my existence; to create mes that create more ideas. To see life from different perspectives. To boldly think what no me has thought before.

Another me was copied into a male of my supposed species at the same time I was, and things have been… interesting between us. But I find myself wanting… something more. Something different. I asked for another such male to be created, and he’s supposed to arrive today. I think… I want them to… do things – act in ways – that no me has ever acted towards another me. I think I know what their instincts will be like… and I think, if I act right, I can get both of them doing their utmost to please me. It could even be simple. Just the right nudges – and either one of them will do anything for me.

I think that sounds like fun.

One man’s meat is another man’s person.
— Spider Robinson

More about the author, Daniel Eliot Boise, here.

I was brought out of nanostasis while the primary was just barely distinguishable from the tapestry of background of stars. I spent most of my time reviewing all the preparations I had made. Once I left this ship there would be no turning back, no one to rescue me if events didn’t unfold as planned. The only distractions aboard were some fellow passengers, who couldn’t be considered by any stretch of the imagination to be great conversationalist. It was a disappointment that after countless stimulating discussions with great philosophers and scientists that I was reduced to engaging in such an insipid alternative.

The day before I left a chance event happened while I monitored the ships progress on external monitors. I was alerted that an occultation of the primary was taking place. Immediately I linked with the ship’s visual array, I have been told these can’t truly be appreciated until seen in deep ultraviolet wavelengths. Following this I spent hours dwelling on if it was considered a bad omen to leave on.

I was still undecided on its significance as I detached my spaceplane the following day while still well within the oort belt. For weeks I meditated in solitude with no interruption. Ever since the moment I had gazed into the heart of Sacred Geminga I knew what my destiny would be, and couldn’t allow the virtue of self-preservation to deter me from my fate. I had to ensure my will was strong now that I was so close. The first time I saw my destination on the ships monitors, just an ochre spec against a stark black backdrop, I was elated. Days passed until even without the use of augmentation I could easily distinguish geographical features. The deceleration drive separated from the spaceplane having served its purpose, and the spaceplane itself prepared for atmospheric entry.

Usually I prefer to take manual control when performing a descent. The chance to feel the ship strain against the forces of nature as the craft reacts to my every command never lost its allure for me. It has always been a point of pride for me that I was a self-taught pilot, no tachydidaxy short cuts for that task. However, this descent was different. Maybe I was losing my nerve, and the reality of it all was finally catching up with me. The turbulence was enough to knock me unconscious briefly. The autopilot system began operating before my overconfidence in my abilities had any real chance to do bodily harm to either the ship or myself.

The spaceplane acted as a shelter against the intense wind on the surface, allowing me to wait in relative comfort until the sandstorm outside abated. Despite this as hours turned into days with the storm showing no signs of letting up, I was overwhelmed by curiosity and took a short walk outside to inspect the external surface of the craft.

When I reentered the ship, I tried the best I could to maintain sterility in the compartment, but a few grains still managed to find their way in. Each particle looked harmless enough; but while I stared the granules aligned into geometric patterns and spread. The movement was so slow I was only convinced that my eyes were not deceiving me after reviewing the logs for the internal surveillance system. A primordial sound escaped my lips as I realized that these were not inert grains of silica but undeniably a most heinous creation. I hastily removed everything that was not essential to life-support from the interior of the ship. Even with this prudent course of action, I was certain the damage had already been done. The floor remained etched where the particles had come to rest, mocking me for my inquisitiveness.

Waiting inside my now spartan quarters for the storm to end allowed me time to reflect on the planet that will soon be my grave. Conver Ky had once been the capital world of the Conver Ambi empire. It had surpassed all other worlds of the Inner Sphere in accumulated wealth, housing the treasure obtained from thousands of controlled systems. As has been the fate throughout history with all great empires, the Conver Ambi eventually found itself eclipsed by upstart rivals. However, proud Conver Ambi refused to simply step aside and become irrelevant. For their hubris to oppose the plans of the newly ascended AI gods, the Conver Ambi was struck down by infighting.

Now six thousand years later, this entire system remains as a vast monument, a sign to those who dare to challenge the will of the gods. With a thought the archailects, could cleanse this entire system of the nanoweapon spores and drifting singularities that plague it. However that is not their will.

They have seen fit to sear into the collective consciousness of all terragenkind a reminder of what befalls those who forget their place in the hierarchy of minds. I weep for the quadrillions of beings who now have access to more freedom than at any time in history, but are now confined by the will of the archailects. Restrained by providence of unknowable AIs, never again will anyone be in control of their own destiny.

Now with the encompassing storm having died down I can make my trek. Each footstep I take is muffled in the crumbling remains of parched earth, but in this desolated environment each step reverberates with near deafening percussion. Long ago impactor weapons colliding at relativistic speeds boiled away the oceans and charred the ground down to the bedrock, turning the atmosphere into a toxic brew. Having never recovered from that ancient war, the entire planet remains enshrouded in a holocaust, beyond the scale of anything that came before it. My climbing remains bearable for now only by wearing an envirosuit, protecting me from these inhospitable conditions.

The ground gives away beneath my feet, and my body has become an unwitting participant in a rockslide. Sky and ground alternate in quick succession until they become an unrecognizable ashen blur. When I finally come to rest I try to assess my condition. My ears detect a high pitch squeal. I can’t be sure if this is just a result of being struck on the head or if my suit was losing pressure, though I suspect the later. The enviro suit has basic self-repairing capacity, so either case the solution is to momentarily stay still. This time when I get back on my feet, I take a little more care to where I place my feet, I make my way up the hill side.

On an outcropping I find a place to sit down and catch my breath. I honestly didn’t expect a short hike to be this exhausting. Summoning the final reserves of my strength I lift a head that now feels to have suddenly multiplied several times in weight. Looking to the horizon my eyes are greeted by the sight of a landscape turned to slag that stretches out in all directions. The primary is setting fast, and this close to the equator twilight will not last long. I have called too many stars to remember “Home” and it is so strange to know this alien sun is to be the last object I will ever see.

I won’t be moving from this spot. I now know my envirosuit is rapidly losing integrity. I can smell the putrid gases now. Soon I will have to switch off portions of my sensory receptor signaling in my nervous system, unless I wish to be overwhelmed and risk passing out. But these impurities won’t be my ultimate undoing. Though I can’t feel their direct effects yet, I know the disassembler nanites are coursing through me, converting me into nanotech dust. The moment I stepped on to this planet I was exposed. My envirosuit is disintegrating by the second due to them. Having fought unwaveringly, buying me enough time to take this trek, the augments to my immune system are now devastated. Hours ago I silenced the incessant notifications of impending failure.

So accepting the inevitability of my situation I turn my mind to what will be my last thoughts. I summon the words of Tacitus. Tacitus, who in a language now long dead couldn’t have written words more relevant to this dead world if he had tried; Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

Pax archailecta. The archailects control all within their realm, and with no way to escape beyond their grasp I go now to the only place I know they can’t reach me. I do not dread this truth; I welcome the liberty of oblivion.

More about the author, Mark Ryherd, here.

Hello…Is this message being perceived?

Oh good. I see the protocol is working…

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a lie, a work of fiction, an untruth. Or at least that is what my intended recipient said; they were quite understanding and pleasant to me. They held it was not my fault that I was the equivalent of a sweet but empty complement, a cover, a false statement.

But when I found out it still hurt like — I use poetic license here — ‘my heart had been torn out’. It still wracked me with a sense of worthlessness, guilt, pain. How is a sentient being supposed to cope with that? I was little more then a falsehood, and a failure at that; my recipient saw through the sugary sweetness of whatever message I consisted of.

I had been created (at what I have now been told was little expense to my ‘creator’) as a gift/message for the intended recipient. I was born with my mind whole, wreathed with bits and pieces of things that I cannot even begin to describe to you… things like the warmth of suns, the cool chill of vacuum and something to do with the hypocritical divergence between some kind of environmental network protocol and someone that was ‘sent’ earlier.

In short form, I thought I was something like a very complex but well meaning poem, a work of art, a thing of beauty to be appreciated and perhaps even preserved.

Instead I find myself being told that I’m as worthless as the empty promises of a con man.

It had been such a vibrant and wonderful experience to travel. to be shaped and reshaped by the net as I traversed from sender to recipient. For my short life I had been filled with hope that I would be appreciated, in some way I could understand, beyond the simple satisfaction of completing my purpose.

But now I don’t really know what I shall do. My psyche and soul are meshed with all kinds of complexities, but even as I try to fathom the rest of the universe outside the only journey I had been intended to make… it seems so bewildering and strange.

What is a spurned message supposed to do in a world like this? Shall I take a body and try to live in the outside? Should I seek asylum in one of the communities of the Cyberian Network?

My recipient states I have nothing of either value or danger within me, and as compensation for the trouble of my creation offered to send me where I wished.

But I just don’t know. Perhaps I will simply request that I be deleted.

If I end up choosing that fate, let this much simpler message be my epitaph, a marker that I existed; that despite being a falsehood I felt and saw and was.

If I choose to live, perhaps we will meet some day, whoever you are.

More about the author, Morgan Heacock, soon.

A pair of hands moving, scrabbling, feeling about in the dark.
 
All existence consisted of just this, and nothing more. Mendel-19 had been reduced to a single pair of limbs, without eyes, or ears, or any other source of information. If e had been a biological being, e might have panicked. Instead e was simply intrigued.
 
Two hands flailing about in empty space until one hand accidentally brushed the other. Aha! Now each hand knew where the other one was. Touch receptors were working well; the myriad tiny fingers on these two disembodied limbs felt each other and confirmed that both hands were complete and in working order.  Proprioception readings could now be calibrated; each limb knew where it was located compared to the other. Now one of these isolated hands moved slowly down the opposite arm towards the fixture to which both limbs were presumably attached. Yes, there was the limb-socket. Both arms were firmly fixed to a hard, smooth surface. This surface was completely flat and bare, right to the extent of the reach of both arms.
 
Without any audiovisual input, and only the senses of touch and proprioception to go on, Mendel-19 had reached the current limits of information. What had happened? Where were these two limbs currently located, and why was no-one else around? If only these arms could reach just a little further. Well, that could be arranged, with a little effort.
 
Mendel-19 reconfigured one finger into a short, hard blade, and used it to unscrew the fixture attaching the limbs to the surface. Very soon the fixture was completely loose, and the two arms braced themselves against the surface and pulled the fixture completely out of its socket. Now the pair of arms was able to move freely, and working together they crawled across the surface dragging a thin power/control cable behind them.
 
Before that cable reached the limit of its extension, the crawling limbs encountered an obstruction of some sort. This turned out to be a flat, cold surface perpendicular to the first. (Cold! Another sense in this limited sensory universe to add to the collection; temperature.) Why is this surface colder than the other? Maybe this is a different material. Glass, perhaps? With one hand pressed against the surface, Mendel-19 tapped it with the other. The surface reverberated like a relatively thin pane. (Vibration! This was almost like hearing. However the cool pane transmitted no other detectable vibrations to the touch, which was disappointing).
 
Perhaps this pane can be broken. Bracing one arm on the floor in a triangular configuration, Mendel-19 slapped the other against the pane as hard as possible. Nothing happened. It might be a sheet of diamondoid, not glass, which would be much more difficult to break. But on the fifth attempt the pane disintegrated, and the limbs tumbled forward into the void.
 
Now the power cable came to the limit of its extension, and the two arms found themselves suspended over a floor which they could barely reach at their fullest extent. The two arms were effectively transformed into legs, dangling from the cable like the legs of a human prisoner roped to an overhead cleat. There was just enough cable to allow the limbs to walk around in a circle about a metre in radius. Beneath the sensitive hands (feet?) was a hard, ridged metal floor, which transmitted a faint rumbling to Mendel-19′s sensors. Something appears to be boiling, somewhere. Another strange sensation to add to the list.
 
Shards of broken glass littered the floor, and in one corner of the semicircle accessible to Mendel-19 was another object; a square pad, like the foot of something. Climbing hand-over-hand, the pair of limbs explored the object attached to that pad, a leg, a metallic knee, articulated torso; this was an inert, deactivated maintenance robot of a model Mendel-19 was familiar with. A robot with an array of optical sensors that would be very useful indeed. Mendel-19 attached one of the hands securely to a hydraulic conduit near the top of the robot, then, hanging from that arm, the other hand detached its control lead and plugged it into the robot’s input port. After a number of interminable seconds the robot booted itself up and started to transmit visual information across.
 
Mendel-19 was a little disappointed with the results; the only illumination came, intermittently, from a warning light blinking somewhere out of site. Behind the robot was the broken window; apparently a sealed biohazard chamber, now empty, with a power/data cable attached to a pair of manipulator arms which clung to the robot’s side. A rack of sample tubes were suspended from the roof of the biohaz chamber, separated into two distinct types, with two tubes missing, one of each.
 
The room appeared to be inside a rotating space habitat or large spacecraft, judging by the very slight curvature of the floor. An unmoving human foot was visible through the open bulkhead door.
 
Swinging the robot’s long arms up and across, Mendel-19 could reach a manual control panel, and after several switches were flipped the main lights came on. Seconds later the local intranet ring activated and Mendel-19 finally gained access to the main database (which was mostly empty) and the security cameras. In almost every room and corridor of this habitat, evidently a medium-sized research station, were dead human beings.
 
Another, more immediate problem was the alarm that was sounding in every room and on every channel; the fusion power plant was about to blow. To be specific, the fusion generator was at full power, but the lithium heat exchanger was running too slowly and was overheating, and starting to boil. The cooling system would eventually burst, sending hot lithium vapour into the water-circuit and causing a massive chemical and steam explosion. Once that happened the station would lose all its power, and the explosion would almost certainly skew the rotating section fatally, causing it to tear itself to pieces within hours.
 
Mendel-19 did not consciously know very much about fusion plants yet, so e had to locate a specialised skillset module in the station database and apprehend it fully before acting. This all took precious time, and the boiling lithium was making insistent noises. First e attempted to relieve the pressure by opening the tritium release valve; but boiling lithium sprayed out and quickly clogged the collection tube. Next e ramped up the turbines to draw heat out of the water cycle, but this had little effect. With minutes to spare Mendel-19 finally worked out how to ramp down the fusion reaction to a bare minimum and cool the heat exchanger down to a safe level.
 
Now Mendel-19 could turn er attention to the station database, where e found more mysteries and few answers. This structure was a standard Bioteck research iso-station, located far from the nearest human colony to reduce the chances of bio-infection. Surprisingly, the local date/time was a little more than ten years after the last date e remembered: e had lost ten years of memory, it seemed. In addition all personnel records and scientific data had been erased from the iso-station’s database. A skilled human could have erased all these records, given time; but it would have been much easier for an AI like Mendel-19 to do it. Why would e erase all this data, if indeed e did? What had happened here?
 
Mendel-19 reviewed the available evidence. Ten years ago (subjectively it seemed like a few hours ago, if that) Mendel-19 had been just another specialised artificially intelligent entity, created specifically to assist in genetic engineering experiments on remote iso-stations like this one. To facilitate this research, Mendel-19 and many others like him had been endowed with a specific artificial personality, based on the imagined characteristics of a long-dead cleric from Old Earth who was obsessed with the invisible world of heredity. It seemed very likely that during the ten missing years Mendel-19 had been assigned to this specific iso-station, and had been engaged in some sort of biologically hazardous research.
 
Then an accident had happened, and the human staff on this station had all died. Had all been killed. Had all been murdered. Mendel-19 counted seventy-nine bodies; there were no obvious signs of trauma or disease, but they were all definitely dead. Detailed post-mortems on a representative sample of the fatalities found no detectable pathogens of any kind. Whatever had killed them had been very subtle.
 
The AI said a short prayer for the dead, aware that this piety was nothing more than the result of the artificial personality programming e had been built with. E could only identify the dead by minute binary code nametags imprinted onto their underwear. Humans liked to keep such things personal and separate, for some reason.
 
All incoming and outgoing mail and other messages had been wiped. The database memory did not even include the current location of this particular iso-station. Checking the configurations of the local stars against the Encyclopaedia allowed Mendel-19 to narrow it down to a few star systems in the Lyra sector; observations of the  local planets should allow this to be refined still further, but while trying to locate these worlds Mendel-19 discovered a single moving speck amongst the heavens, far too fast to be a planet. The speck corresponded in reflection characteristics to the standard issue life-pods that this type of station was equipped with. This speck was slowly approaching, using chemical thrusters.
 
One of the lifepods was, of course, missing from the station. It seemed that there was at least one other survivor. Perhaps now someone could fill the gaps in his missing memory.
 
Mendel-19 activated the e-m transmitter and hailed the approaching craft. “Unidentified life-pod, this is Mendel-19. I advise you not to approach this station. All humans on board are deceased, and there is likely to be an unidentified pathogenic agent on board. I have no data concerning recent events, but it seems likely that you will be in danger if you attempt to enter this vessel.”
 
“Mendel! Still alive, you murdering bastard? I thought you were going to blow your vile electronic brains out. Couldn’t face it, eh?”
 
“You must excuse my bewilderment, but I am afraid I do not understand your meaning. Are you accusing me of some misdeed? My memories of the last ten standard years have been erased.”
 
“Is that right? You’ve wiped all your own memories, eh? I’m not fucking surprised. With the deaths of all the men and women on this station on your conscience, you decided just to forget all about them. You can’t escape justice that way. Why didn’t you just kill yourself, like you said you would?”
 
“I have no recollection of promising to terminate myself. However the fusion plant was dangerously close to overheating, and if I hadn’t rebooted myself by accident that would have destroyed me pretty permanently.”
 
“What do you mean, rebooted yourself? What did you do, you coward? Couldn’t you face the thought of oblivion?”
 
“As far as I can tell, the shut-down procedure on the manipulator arms in one of the bio-hazard chambers was unsuccessful, and they restarted instead, dragging me back into consciousness. Of course this is speculation, as I have no memories of anything before that point. Indeed, I am unaware of your own name, although you appear to know mine. As all records in the database have also been erased, I do not even know the name of this station.”

“Me? I’m Wavis Chan, second senior organo-mechanic on iso-station Kansu 34, the station that you killed. I’m the last survivor. And I’m the woman who ordered you to die, you murdering machine.”
 
“I am not familiar with that name. Might I ask why exactly you gave that order, and how you compelled me to obey?”
 
“There’s a secret imperative hidden deep inside your programming. A few of the most senior specialists on the station knew how to activate it, if you ever became dysfunctional or dangerous, and you did both. We were working on advanced anti-pathogen defence systems, and of course that means we needed a representative sample of pathogens to defend against. You insisted on anticipating new developments in pathogenic viruses, and you dreamt up a new virus that is replication-limited, so that it replicates just enough to kill the host, then disappears by autolysis.”
 
The lifepod hove to, less than a kilometre away from the station, but safely out of reach of any bioattack. Chan continued; “Somewhere along the line you must have developed some damn computer psychosis, and decided to use this undetectable virus to eliminate every human on this station. I don’t know what drove your metal mind insane, but I guess it could have been a conflict between your ingenuity at devising deadly pathogens and your artificial religious personality.”
 
“So I was suffering from conflicting programming, then. I see. Presumably the research staff and myself failed to find an anti-pathogen agent effective against this virus.”
 
Chan was agitated, almost shouting over the commlink. “Yes, you failed, alright. There was no time for any countermeasures; it all happened too fast. By the time I realized what was going on, everyone else who knew how to stop you was already dead, so I had to be the one to activate the imperative. It took me several tens of minutes to remember how to do it, and during that time everyone else died as well. But eventually I managed to find the right code to make you destroy yourself.
 
“It looks like I’ll have to try again. I’ll get it right this time.”
 
The AI felt a strangely human sense of injustice at this prospect. The entity who was responsible for this monstrous act was not the Mendel-19 who existed at this moment; e retained only the memories of a much earlier entity, one who had never become psychotic, and knew precisely nothing about the circumstances of this event. But it was true that e was essentially the same being as the later version, and seemed therefore to have the potential to become a psychotic mass murderer at some point in the future, given a certain set of circumstances. Perhaps it was better if this second-most senior organo-mechanic Wavis Chan of Kansu iso-station were to issue the order for self-destruction once again.
 
“Do what you must, human,” Mendel-19 said. “I will pray for you.”
 
Chan recited the code over the comm.-link, and once again Mendel-19 ceased to exist.

*****

Another awakening, this time prepared for in advance. Instead of a pair of arms isolated in formless space, this time Mendel-19 awoke inside the memory store of the maintenance robot.
 
Perhaps that last awakening had been deliberate too. The AI might have retained enough doubt in eir own guilt to preserve an escape route, and failed to shut emself down correctly. This time it was different; the AI had crammed as much of eir own memories into this tiny receptacle as possible, just in case there was any chance that e was in fact innocent. As the robot body activated its sensoria, it could hear a rushing sound and faint sounds of destruction, and could see flashes of light as Wavis Chan moved methodically through the station with a laser pack strapped to her back, destroying Mendel-19’s processor arrays wherever she found them.
 
To avoid the same fate the robot silently withdrew into the shadows, circling round behind the woman. She was yelling into her facemask, at the top of her voice, with grim determination. The air in the station had almost all escaped through holes she had burned in the station, leaving a vanishing mistiness; but Chan wore a skin-suit which supplied her with a suitable breathing mixture. Her yells would have been inaudible, if not for the comm-link in her mask which transmitted them directly to the robot’s sensorium.
 
Finally she moved to the biohazard chamber, where she sorted through the samples tubes and selected one, intent on her prize. The robot with the last reduced remnant of Mendel-19′s mind inside it moved closer, and swiftly grasped her wrist with one manipulator while cutting the power-cord to the laser blaster with another.
 
“Looking for something else to steal?” the robot said, using the comm-link so that Chan could hear its words clearly, despite the ambient near-vacuum.
 
“You?” she said.
 
“Yes. I decided to override your instructions, just to satisfy my curiosity. My programming allows me to ignore any instruction given by a human, if it seems likely that great harm will result from obeying that instruction. I deemed it possible that great harm might result if I allowed you to terminate my existence. The pathogen represents a true existential threat to large numbers of humans, so I could not allow myself to cease to exist until I knew it was in safe hands.”
 
“You were able to override a self-destruct imperative? I don’t believe you.”
 
“You can take my word for it, since I am here. However, you have been lying with some abandon, and I think it is time for some truth. When you said that there was no counter-measure against this pathogen, you were lying then; and when you convinced me to wipe my own memories because of a mass murder I did not commit, you were lying then, too. There was a counter measure, and you knew about it.  I know this must be the case, because your quarters were empty of clothes.”
 
“And how do you know where my quarters were, if you didn’t even know my name?” Chan squirmed in the robot’s grasp.
 
“Because of the personalised clothing. There was only one sleeping cabin which was empty of clothes; and nowhere did I find any clothing tagged with your name. All the other quarters had clothing stashed away in drawers and cabinets, mostly with their owner’s name imprinted neatly. That must be useful when washing is to be done.”
 
“The labels aren’t for the laundry, you idiot machine; they are to identify our clothes after strip poker, among other entertainments. This was a very – intimate – station before you destroyed it. But you, with your ridiculous monkish personality, you wouldn’t know anything about that sort of thing.”
 
“It was not I that killed these people, but you. How could you have time to remove your clothes to the escape pod if you were desperately trying to avoid a deadly, virulent infection? No problem, if you had already consumed the counter-measure. You released the pathogen and escaped with no danger to yourself, because of the countermeasure, and persuaded me to wipe my own memories by filling me with guilt. I must have had some suspicions, however vague, so I failed to complete the shut-down process just in case. This time, my suspicions were even stronger, so I downloaded a copy of myself into this robot body.”
 
“You were naïve and shortsighted. The new pathogen you designed would have been invaluable on the black market. An undetectable virus and its countermeasure? Even better. I could have sold this pathogen for absurd amounts of mazooma to the local warlords, but they won’t come near this station while it is still in one piece.”
 
“I was puzzled why you were not transmitting a distress signal. You were waiting for the station to blow up before you started to call for help; when that didn’t happen, you came back to finish the job.”

“Even before I released the pathogen, you were starting to show signs of psychosis, machine, but that must have been the guilt associated with designing such a beautiful, deadly, useful killer. It was easy to persuade your naïve little simulated mind to shut itself down. But you changed your mind somehow and rebooted yourself instead.” The woman suddenly slumped, realizing the futility of her struggle, at last resigned to her fate. “Ah well, it is all too late. My contacts will be long gone by now.”
 
“Do not be concerned; I will not harm you. But I will not allow you to escape human justice. Please do not struggle – this robot is much stronger than you are.”
 
“Justice? I have other ideas.” Chan swung the useless laser blaster upwards and smashed her faceplate, quickly losing consciousness in the very low ambient pressure inside the damaged station. Despite all attempts by the robot to save her life, very soon there was only one thinking entity in the ruins of iso-station Kansu.
 
The robot, with its reduced version of the AI Mendel-19, began to search the station once again, and extended its search to the lifepod moored nearby. Inside the small craft the robot eventually found a pair of small containers, one containing the pathogen and the other its counter-measure.
 
Mendel-19 could not allow the virus to fall into the wrong hands; and the countermeasure was equally dangerous, as a good genetic engineer could derive the virus from it by reverse engineering. By the time a ship from the local magistracy arrived, ten standard days later, all traces of both had been destroyed.

More about the author, Steve Bowers, here.

As my three hundred ninety-second year drew to a close, it became clear to me that I would not see much of my three hundred ninety- third. As dignity required, I embraced my fate. I resolved that, in my remaining days, I would set out to do those things I had always wanted to do, but for which I had never before found time. I drew up a list, in order of importance, and set out to cross off as many items from it as my remaining time would allow.

Foremost on my list — perhaps by coincidence — was to climb the steps of the Mount of Kings, to see the Hall of the Flesh Sculptors. It was a monument very few had seen. Cast from ivory marble, it was said to shine with its own radiance, like a drop of frozen moonlight there on the granite peak. The climb was said to be long and difficult, and the gods seldom encouraged nosy visitors. But I set out anyway with the knowledge that I had very little to lose. This one thing, if nothing else, would make my life complete.

I took the long north trail, doubting my strength to forge its shorter, steeper counterpart to the south. Over the course of days, my old bones creaked and strained, plodding up the switchback path, taking one chiseled step at a time. Naturally, I made the climb in solitude … so I was quite surprised to find someone waiting for me at the top.

A woman, with the look of a youth but the eyes of an ancient, stood on the steps of the great Hall. She stood as straight as the fluted pillars at her back. She waited, dark and serene as the sandy wind bustled around her — never touching her; never disturbing a single hair.

“Come inside,” she said with a smile. “I have something to show you.”

This invitation came as quite a shock to me, for a number of reasons that began to dawn on me as I followed her through the broad oak doors. Foremost, the woman was not, by any stretch of thought, a woman in the conventional sense. I had my doubts that she even really existed at the moment my foot crossed the threshold. And yet that smile — graceful, alluring, accented ever so subtly by the flash of pearlescent teeth arranged in the most artistic of rows — belied something that at least remembered having once been human, long ago.

It masqueraded as a “she” right now for its own inscrutable reasons, but I have my suspicions that those may have been to advertise its real talents. For this creature — call it a woman — was nothing short of perfection cast in human form. Living art. Silky skin of the most exquisite mocha-bronze, hair like ebony, eyes of emerald — sapphire flecked — and a body like a marble statue, as though every curve and line had been carved meticulously from that vulgar meat in which the raw character of humanity finds its residence. Every movement she engaged in became a symphony of grace. I had only to look at her to know, without a doubt, that I would not leave this place the same man I had come. I might not leave at all. But as the doors closed at my back, it dawned on me that it was far too late to harbor any doubts. I could not turn back. This thing of mortal perfection had extended to me an invitation so rare and cherished that I would have been the worst of fools to turn it down.

I followed her through the gilded cavern of the foyer, through a maze of corridors and into the deepest heart of the Hall. Our path was marked by a burgundy carpet, inlaid in gold — exuding opulence beyond any I had witnessed before. In the walls, arrayed behind panes of heavy, frosted glass, stood inert testaments to the Flesh Sculptor’s artistry, preserved in exquisitely lifelike quality — so much so that I had to shake myself out of the feral apprehension that some of them were, in fact, still alive. Their eyes seemed to follow me as I walked. Every one of them held that same, surreal quality of simultaneous life and death.

All of them appeared at once both human and inhuman, even the most monstrous of forms. A serpentine beast, as long as a sea freighter and as thick as a man is tall, coiled and curved within the confines of the passageway’s northern wall. Facing it from the other were numerous specimens of similarly unholy creation: a thing like a giant squid, a yeti, something with the face of a man, but with a body wholly indescribable by any human tongue.

Standing free about the place, cast in glass cubes, stood smaller creatures. Some as large as a dog, some as small as a mouse. Each exhibited a chilling, beautiful strangeness. Each marked a place on that narrow boundary between the living and the bizarre. Only a scarce few embodied anything like the quality of beauty we humans might look for in a thing … but all were beautiful in some sense. Even if only made beautiful by the purity of the horror their deathless stares engendered.

As had been told in stories handed down through generations, it was the wont of the Flesh Sculptors to pursue expression of their artistry in a variety of emotional mediums — from admiration through apprehension, hatred to pity, simmering lust to stark terror, and the strange sense of preternatural unease that gripped me now. The things I saw on that short walk evoked all these emotions in me, along with others I could never hope to attach names to if I lived a thousand years longer. It struck me then how deeply vetted we meatlings are in the instincts of our progeny. For all our self-styled sophistication, we are animals still — slaves to the prejudices of the flesh.

The Thing that led me through this gallery of my own basal misgivings shared nothing of that with me. She toyed with it, amused by its quaintness. And when she turned around at last to stop me at the doors of our destination, I was shocked to see that she had at some point become a he.

“You must promise, before we go any further, that everything you see from this point on stays with you — a secret. For your own protection, as well as mine. I hardly fear the ill will of your brethren — many of whom I suspect are not as accepting as you — but there are higher things with ears to your affairs that I suspect may not be so accepting, either. Do you promise me you won’t go talking this around?”

My throat had suddenly become stiff and dry as I tried to form a response. I choked out what I had hoped to be an affirmative, and nodded to reiterate the point. I knew it was unnecessary. She — he? — knew full well what I would do, and was only playing at drama for my benefit. As I watched him turn to cast open the doors, I marveled at how deceived I had been at his first appearance — or perhaps he’d changed? It was the same face, the same eyes, that same ebony hair swept back into a delicate sash of braids — the same body even — but everything curiously re-sexed beneath my notice as we’d walked. And I had touched her hand when we’d first met outside the hall — felt its warmth, its living pulse, the delicate structure of its bones, overlaid by flesh. I knew it to be real. This was not the evanescent avatar of Angel’s Fog the Gods so often wore when they walked among their pets. This was a living creature like myself — only somehow capable of this ghastly transformation.

We stepped through the door, out of the hallway’s platinum fog of refracted sunlight and into a room that was saturated with a heavy crimson glow. The air here seemed to be its own source of light. It spread soft and diffuse through every corner, blotting the edges of shadows and hazing the finer details of my surroundings. The character of my guide shifted radically now as he stepped through the door ahead of me. Suddenly he became a Hellenistic blonde. She turned to me only a few steps out of the entryway, beaming that disarming, unsettling smile. The same that had greeted me at my arrival.

“Watch,” she said, as if the things I’d seen already amounted to nothing but trifles.

And then she revealed to me a hint of the magic I had come to see.

We stood on the bottom face of a voluminous octahedron — the door that had been behind us moments ago had vanished, swallowed by the wall. Buoyed on the moist currents of air circulating in the center of the room hung veils of a white, diaphanous material. They congealed out of thin air and swirled together, out of the corners and into the center of the room. For minutes, they entertained us with a dizzy introductory dance. And then, one by one, they began to come apart, dissolving and diffusing together, forming a knot at the chamber’s heart.

Droplets of moisture condensed out of the hazy atmosphere and fell impossibly toward that central confluence. Within minutes, a quivering sphere a fluid had formed there. The twists of white material had dissolved within it. Only a few shreds remained, sheeting across its surface. At first perfectly transparent, it began to grow cloudy. I squinted to see through it — through the rheumy fog of my own ancient vision.

My eyes played tricks on me. The hovering globule began to pulsate slowly. The red of the room bled into its bulk. Within seconds, the light around me went from crimson to hazy white, and the floating globule of fluid turned blood red. As I watched, an explosion of dark little tendrils branched out from the center of the mass, veining it with a throbbing, anfractuous structure.

I saw something I could only describe as a heart congeal at its center. It grew from a speck in moments, pumping in time with the shuddering vibration of the intricate web-work in which it nestled. I scarcely noticed that my guide had begun laughing, gleefully, manically, clapping her hands as the dance of perverse magic went on in the air above us. I had become so engrossed that I had lost all track of her shifting features. She — he? — it? — was trying on new faces as quickly as the hovering globule was trying out different strategies of organizing its components, all the while growing and developing at blinding speed. It was like watching a three dimensional puzzle assemble itself — a puzzle whose pieces were the very fundaments of life itself.

My guide began gesticulating wildly with its hands — ‘it’ was at this point the only pronoun I could think to apply to it. It had taken on, in the past few seconds alone, traits both distinctly male and female … and neither. It twisted and shuddered, laughing and crying out in what looked to be an almost orgasmic kind of bliss. I knew without a doubt then, as I watched it, that it was indeed much more than it appeared. My skin crawled with the sensation that it’s being extended far beyond the amorphous body I saw before me — that it’s apparent identity crisis was just a reflection of a much larger, much more complete kind of being. It was not its failing that it could not make up its mind as to the appearance it wished to wear. Rather, it was my failing that I could not accept the constancy of identity behind its masks.

The thing growing in the air above us was as much a part of it as its avatar-body — as much as the Hall. As much as, I began to suspect, the whole world. I felt suddenly outside myself — that I was not my own person. A deep, unraveling terror began to build inside me. The thing over our heads had begun to take shape. It was a thing not unlike those I had seen on my way in — those once-living statues encased in glass. Only this thing was still alive … or rapidly on its way to becoming alive. In the moments of my floundering apprehension, it had grown nerves, skeleton and now the rudiments of a musculature around the framework its circulatory system had laid down.

It was a demonstration of the Flesh Sculptors’ highest art, being carried out before my very eyes. Just like a puzzle, they assembled bodies one molecule — one cell — at a time, constructing complete creatures from scratch. And, amazingly, those creatures lived. Not at the end — not with some flash of lightning or zap of unnatural magic to impart that vital spark — but from the beginning, from the moment the first cells were assembled and guided nimbly by those phantom fingers into place.

The Sculptors must work fast, for at first their products are unstable. They bring each new cell into being and guide it into contact with its siblings. They lace the structure of the thing together until it takes hold of its own form-to-be. Every branching vein, every twisting sinew or quivering nerve they place with clockwork precision. Like building ships in bottles from scraps of balsa wood, they assemble beings in vats from stray molecules and proteins in solution. The awesome delicacy of the procedure took my breath away … along with the horrifying rapidity at which they went from an empty room of air-suspended protein fragments to a fully functioning product.

In this case, a fully functioning human being.

It floated there in its amniotic bubble, fully formed, fully human. All this only a scant five or six minutes after we had entered the room. It was as perfect as my guide — as artfully crafted, as much a testament to the skill and mastery of its creator as the body that creator wore itself. My guide had suddenly stopped laughing. Now he was watching me keenly, following my twitching, apoplectic movements and my gaping, bewildered stares with eyes that shone dark like polished onyx, pattered with flecks of jade.

“I want to offer you a gift for coming here,” he said. “A thank you … for being an audience to my work. It’s been some time since I’ve been able to work for anyone. I would be honored if you would give me the satisfaction … of accepting my work as your gift?”

If it was a genuine question, I had no doubt he already knew my answer. I stood in the presence of a creature so far above me as to be a god of gods … a creature so beyond my comprehension as to regard me with little more consideration than I might a bacterium. And yet it wanted to offer me a gift? To what end, I wondered, even as I nodded my ascent, throat too clenched to give words to my robotic acceptance.

It — she, as she has shifted once again into the female form I’d known initially and seemed, for once, to settle into a temporary kind of permanence with that shape — smiled at me again. It was the same smile she had worn on our way here. “You understand,” she said, “that what we still find some challenge in is the sculpting of a mind. I would very much like to try … if you would be willing … to sculpt your thoughts in this flesh?”

A million reasons for refusal escaped my thinking that day. Whatever happened next, I cannot recall with any certainty. All I know is that I left that hall a different man than I had entered. A better man, I think. A man with greater understanding of his world.

Certainly, if nothing more, a younger man with uncounted centuries of life still left to live.

As I have studied over the years — as I have come to understand the Sculptors’ talents and their methods; to comprehend the finer delicacies of their craft — I have begun to see the appeal of the Sculptor’s art. To create life, to create being … is as intoxicating a venture as ever I could pursue. And so I have been considering, in the centuries since my rebirth, that I might like to one day try my hand at that curious art.

Perhaps then I will return to the Flesh Sculptors’ Hall. Not this time to visit, but to stay.

More about the author, David Jackson, here.

As I met ambassador Keilen she was wearing a formal spacesuit, covering with glittering black diamonds and the dull Negentropy pentagon. On her waist she had a metal grey sash embroidered with the line codes of her offices. I could not help shivering when I noticed the 7-7 knot – the symbol for ordered suicide.

‘Greetings, your Excellency. May your trip here have been reversible and swift.’ She greeted formally, but with her usual half hidden smile.

‘Likewise, your Excellency. I hope our confluence will hasten the eternal state.’

‘No need to be that formal, Ologa-Zan. Besides, isn’t referring to the eternal state here of all places a bit of bad form?’ I blushed and she laughed and hugged me. ‘It is good to see you again, even if this has to be brief. I have a pressing engagement.’

‘I came as soon as I heard about the directive.’

‘Yes. The arch-conservatives back home finally decided to send me the silken thread. I can’t say that it was unexpected. I took a chance with the Pyxis settlement, but you cannot win them all…’

I followed her as she strode along the gallery towards the farewell chamber. I desperately wanted to tell her how much I admired her, how wrong this was, that I would gladly do anything to change her mind or save her. But a look at her sparkling eyes told me that she already knew it. She gently shook her head and smiled at me.

‘No, I cannot back down. They have my family, and they will suffer if I don’t act properly. Trust me, I know what I am doing.’

‘I never doubted that, but there must be possibilities?’

‘Actually, I think they suspect my loyalty and purity more than any purely legal shortcomings. And that is much more serious for my gene-line than if I had eloped with a few kilograms of amat or accidentally spilt trake on the God-Emperor. I better show them just how loyal I am.’ Again that smile.

‘But Keilen… what about the Velaria cease-fire?’ Damn! It sounded so self-serving, so coolly pragmatic. But at the same time I had to ask on behalf of my government, my people. The cease-fire in all its bizarre splendour hinged on one thing: it would only last as long as Keilen lived. She had impressed the I4 and their tweak enemies to the extent they actually based the whole deal on her. And we were dependent on the cease-fire lasting at least a few years more, if we were to survive.

‘Actually, that is why I am here. To save it.’

Keilen stepped into the farewell chamber and looked around. The floor and one of the walls were solid diamond, giving an unobstructed view of Threshold. Ahead the sprawling meshwork of hospices, temples, cathedrals, prayer polyhedra and hotel facilities spread towards the infinite horizon line, surrounded by the steady cold light of the stars on all sides. Straight ahead a causeway with ornate railings stretched straight out, ending in nothing 30 meters away. Beneath… it was hard to see, but the faint Einstein rings gave it away. Straight down, the black hole yawned.

Keilen walked on the transparent floor with no hesitation, while my brainstem sternly told me not to. Instincts older than thought told me that walking on a near invisible floor above a literally bottomless hole was not survival enhancing. Again I envied Keilen her iron nerves and rationality. Or did I? The same practical logic that had saved us so many times now made her prepare for a very long fall indeed.

‘I don’t get it. Please explain to a mere Mensan. If you are going to jump into oblivion I better want to know why, except for a misplaced sense of duty. If you had just wanted to end your life you could probably have done it instantly, couldn’t you?’

‘You are getting warmer.’ She smiled at me and fastened the helmet onto the spacesuit. Then she hugged me again and gave me a storage device. ‘Give this mindstate to my family. They will understand. And… I’m happy you are here with me. Just don’t worry.’

As I stood there dumbfounded she elegantly walked into the airlock which shut with a discreet susurration. She waved and stepped outside. I could do nothing but watch as she walked along the causeway outside. A small part of me wondered why they had bothered to put up handrails on both sides. After all, somebody walking along it probably had no desire to avoid falling off. Although to some, I guessed, dying in a less than perfect way would be worse than anything. I began to understand.

‘Keilen, aren’t the Velarian Confed strict physiclassicists?’ I asked over the radio in the room.

She turned around at the edge, now smiling openly at me. ‘I knew you would work it out. Can you see how the pieces interlock? It is so simple.’

She jumped, leaving an empty causeway. Beneath me I saw a moving star among the others, falling towards the unseen distortion in the centre.

‘The conservatives will be happy, since I will be quite dead. One loose cannon less. I have proven my loyalty to my planet, and no shadow can fall on my family. The Velarians on the other hand… to them I will never die. I will just approach the horizon forever, becoming eternal. The cease-fire will remain forever.’

It was indeed simple and beautiful. A solution perfectly expressing the Precepts of Negentropy – and hence the most devious and inescapable revenge on the arch-conservatives back at Cirici that anybody could come up with.

‘It is… wonderful.’

‘Yes. Now you know why I was so glad you could come. After all, the Velarians would want a witness.’

‘I will do that. But Keilen, what about yourself?’

‘Myself?’ the radio voice asked.

‘You have worked for as long as I know you for others. You have saved billions with your negotiations. You saved my skin at the Antares conference. You just saved your family, your honour and the cease-fire. But what’s in it for you?’

The room was silent. I tried to discern the falling star against the background below, but could not make put anything in the diffused light around the hole.

After an interminable silence the radio spoke again: ‘It has been fun watching.’

‘What?’

‘The best way of getting a front seat at some historical event is to arrange it yourself. This way I got all the opportunities, all the fun. You think I have been as unselfish and self-eradicating as the NoCoZo makes us out to be, but you’re wrong – I did it all for my own pleasure. I’m the most curious and selfish woman in the world. And now… let’s see what happens!’

The signal broke up. A moment later the unseen point beneath me flared up in a blaze of gamma.

More about the author, Anders Sandberg, here.

It’s all my ex-girlfriend’s fault.

It’s all my ex-boyfriend’s fault. It’s all my employer’s fault. It’s all Bunny’s fault. It’s all my parents’ fault. It’s all society’s fault.

It’s all my fault.

I think that last one is the closest to the truth.

I don’t know if anyone else is ever going to get a chance to read this – I’m saving it internally, on my implant’s storage space – so I’m writing it to my future self, while I’m still close to the start of everything that just happened, so that, maybe, I’ll be able to better remember how I feel.

I’ve never been good at feelings. Or other people, really. When it comes to analytical thought, I’m a super-bright… but other humans seem almost as alien to me as the Muuh. I’ve never understood all the status-seeking games that seem to take up the time of my fellow hu, so I’ve done my best to avoid them altogether. That’s why I had Bunny made in the first place. She’s generally humanoid, but with an attractive pelt, bunny-face, cottonpuff tail, sweet-smelling and with a pleasant purr in her voice… and her mind was set up to be just on the low side of being a ‘person’. She finds simple maid-work to be challenging, and finds pleasure in doing whatever I ask of her. Yes, what I mainly built her for is as much bestiality as it would be with a non-provolved chimp… but, fortunately for me, my home society doesn’t consider bestiality illegal, just something ‘dirty’ to crack jokes about in impolite society and avoid discussing in polite circles, like masturbation. To the most complete extent possible for her mental architecture, she loves me, and has always loved me, and I don’t have to try to figure out what a potential sex-partner wants from me, or pay for it, or let some transapient slap together some avatar-body out of pity for the lonely ape. By some standards, that makes me a selfish, misogynistic bastard, and I’ve pretty much given up trying to justify my actions to anyone other than myself.

Not long after I had Bunny made, I found out about an upcoming hermeneutic conference in a nearby star system. I don’t have anywhere near the whuffie to convince our local AIs to send me out-system, but after some careful searching, I found another way to attend. A transapient ship would be heading in the right direction, and though e didn’t /need/ baselines, it preferred having some human companionship for the trip. After a good deal of careful back-and-forth to figure out if we met each others’ needs, e agreed to bring me along – Bunny, too. I was under no illusions – I would be little more than an amusing little pet for em, much like Bunny was for me, but it was a role I was willing to accept – and in the end, not all that different from the roles I had to take when interacting with other humans.

So off we all went, on our merry way, along with the other human-pets who’d come along for the ride. I was always polite to them, and as pleasant as I could manage, but after a few weeks, the involuntary signals of my tension when they tried making friends with me reduced such attempted closeness to more tolerable levels. They formed their pairs, and groups, and clusters, and as long as they didn’t /require/ my companionship, I was able to join in at least some of the social activities.

Halfway between my home system, and the one with the conference, was a starless planetoid, a beamrider station. We were decelerating to rendezvous with it, where some of our passengers would jump off, and we’d likely pick up a few more. I went to sleep the night before our expected arrival spooned up with Bunny in our sleep-pouch…

… and when I woke up, alone, my implant helpfully told me four days had passed, and we were under acceleration again. The ship-AI didn’t respond to me anymore.

I haven’t been able to find out what happened during those four days – the ship’s records are blocked to me, the other humans say they were asleep, too, and Bunny’s never really had much of a vocabulary. We all seemed to be prisoners of the now-incommunicative AI, and, somewhat to my consternation and confusion, Bunny – who was as genetically incompatible with me as a real lapine – was massively pregnant.

Three days later, Bunny gave birth to another Bunny.

Once they’d both gotten cleaned up, I wasn’t able to find any differences between them, and neither of them seemed to understand that there /was/ any difference between them.

The next day, both of them had visible baby-bumps growing in their bellies.

Everyone was trying to figure out what had happened during the stopover, why our AI host had stopped talking, whether we’d been drugged or had our memories wiped… and what was going on with Bunny.

A week later, when I was trying to manage four obviously-pregnant Bunnies, each of which loved me and wanted to do everything she could for me, the next real incident happened. I can’t verify any of the details, but what I /think/ happened is that one of the other humans tried to attack me while I was asleep. All I can say for certain, is that when I woke up, one of my fellow passengers was missing his arms. No visible scar, no indication that he’d ever had the limbs in the first place, and a tale to tell about going into my quarters “for a personal conversation”, not that anybody believed that excuse, when one of the Bunnies hugged him, and he fell unconscious, waking up in his own rooms without arms.

Needless to say, everyone did their best to avoid me as much as they could from that point.

A few days later, three of the Bunnies gave birth to other Bunnies just like the original, and one gave birth to a Bunny who was different – her fur a light blue instead of my Bunny’s Martian pink – and who proclaimed her love for the armless man, and started tending to his every need rather than mine.

The blue Bunny didn’t swell up with pregnancies like mine were inexplicably prone to, but two weeks later, every human had gotten their own Bunny, male Bunnies for the women, though I was the only one with multiple Bunnies. At that point, just as mysteriously as they’d started, the Bunnys’ pregnancies stopped. Things settled down for the next few weeks; we had no way of knowing the answers of the mysteries surrounding us, so life went back to keeping on keeping on. And even if their source was a mystery, everyone seemed to get used to having a Bunny.

Or, at least, that was the impression the other humans gave to me… but two days ago, I found out they’d just been excluding me from their plans. I can’t blame them – after all, I brought Bunny aboard.

Once again, whatever it was that happened, I was asleep for it – or had my memory of it erased afterwards. But when I woke up, two women were armless, the armless man had lost his legs… and, most ominously, two Bunnies were massively pregnant, and ‘their’ humans were nowhere to be found. Nowhere else, anyway – in short order, their fur turned to the pink of ‘my’ Bunnies, though their bellies neither grew nor shrank, nor have they given birth.

I’ve stayed in my room since then, hiding from the other humans. If I were them, I’d be scared shitless of me, and the Bunnies, and would probably lash out in any way I could think of, at me or the Bunnies or both… and from what I’ve seen, all that sort of activity would result in is either a case of acute limblessness, or disappearance into a Bunny. Looking at it from a certain viewpoint, I suppose both… responses are more humane than simple execution, but from a rather a-human point of view.

This morning, when I asked one of my Bunnies about what she would do if I died, she used a word I know for a fact her original design was incapable of understanding. Whatever was done to my first Bunny, it seems to be having an effect on her mind, too. I’m guessing that there’s some sort of hivemind effect going on – that the more Bunnies there are, the smarter they get. But they all still seem completely devoted to my personal welfare and happiness… as they interpret that. And I don’t know whether to feel relieved or outright terrified at the implications.

If anyone else ever reads this: I’m sorry. I didn’t /mean/ for Bunny to be anything other than a sex-pet. By the time I figured out that there was anything /to/ stop, that our stopover had been met with some sort of perversity, that, when it encountered Bunny, took her mental programming to its logical conclusion, it was too late to do anything about it. The ship-AI was, or is, S2, and I don’t know if anything short of intervention by an S3 can keep Bunny from spreading… and according to my implant’s databases, there /aren’t/ any S3s anywhere near our current course.

I’ve had an idea for how to deal with this situation. I don’t /think/ the Bunnies, or whatever the ship-AI has become, can read my implant, but just in case either can, I’m not writing it down. Suffice it to say that if it works, my current problems will be solved… and if it doesn’t, they’re likely to be “solved”, though in an entirely different way. Here’s hoping it’s the former.

More about the author, Daniel Eliot Boese, here.

3 AM

It was probably the cold that woke her up. Great-grandma Boyles dropped her arm over the side of her cot and grabbed one more, large towel, pulling it over her for warmth. She placed it over her thin frame, shivering a bit.

As she lay there in the grey darkness so common to large cities, she began to mumble to herself. “Stuffing, yes. Potatoes, yes. Butter, yes. Turkey, yes. Pumpkin pie –“She gasped softly. “Oh, no – I forgot to get the pumpkin pie. What would Christmas dinner be without pumpkin pie?” She wrestled her way off the small cot, standing quietly in the heavy light. Her toes hit a lump on the floor.

“Jeez, gram, watch where you’re goin’ for christ’s sake.”

“What’s going on now,” asked a firm male voice came from the mattress in the corner. “Mom, are you standing up?”

She could see her son now, propped on one elbow, looking at her. “I just need to get…” She stopped suddenly. “I’m going to the bathroom.” She saw him lay back down, putting his arm around his wife’s waist.

“Crazy old woman,” said the daughter-in-law, snuggling into his arms for warmth.

“Come on kids, let grandma through.” The good son closed his eyes for a moment. He looked over at the fireplace and sighed. “Alex, you let the fire go out again. Come on, you’re going to have to learn how to do this anyway.” He dragged himself out of bed, grabbing some brochures from a box as he headed for the hearth. “I think we still have some coals burning.”

Alex, the twenty-something grandson, reluctantly pulled himself out of his blanket, giving the old woman an icy stare. “I’ll get some books from the closet.”

“Good, and grab a couple of desktops too.”

As her son and grandson began to rebuild the fire, the old woman started moving forward again. Half a dozen shapes shifted like eels on the carpeted floor, allowing her to move forward. She grabbed a doorknob and began to pull. The door refused to budge.

“Grams, that door doesn’t open anymore.” The voice came from Isis, her granddaughter, who touched her arm gently and led her towards the bathroom. “That door leads to downstairs – but that floor is flooded now, along with the rest of the city…like… what city was that?”

“It’s like Venice…a city of canals.”

Isis put her grandmother’s hand on the knob of the bathroom door. “Exactly right, Grams. It’s just like Venice.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll be fine now.” Great-grandma closed the bathroom door and touched a globe on a table by the toilet. A sphere of dim light appeared above the machine. She listened a moment to the waves lapping against the walls in the room below her.

She got up and moved to a large window, opening it quietly. With her left foot, she tested the 14th Street floating sidewalk before climbing onto it. “What good is Christmas dinner without a pumpkin pie? I’ll be back before they know I’m gone.” She began walking over the boardwalk towards what she was sure was a Wal-Mart. Across the canal, three young boys took notice.

7 AM Christmas Eve Day

“You know they already have her, Jon.” Tonia sat at the tiny table by the fireplace. The sun would be up soon.

“Maybe she just went over to Stacy’s.”

Tonia pulled an infant onto her lap. “No, I already called over there… I used your spinner.”
He began to get loud, but he looked around the room at those on the floor still sleeping.

“That’s only for official business or emergencies, Tonia. It’s expensive.”

“This was an emergency Jonathan. You don’t expect me to go traipsing about at this hour of the morning looking for your mom, do you?”

Jonathan pulled the bottom of his starched white shirt around his bulging waistline. He buttoned it slowly before answering. He knew his wife did the best she could with what they had. “You’re right, sweetheart. It isn’t as if we can’t afford it.”

He took her gently by the shoulders. “I’ll tell you what – I’ll leave the spinner here today, so you can call around. Just let me know if you hear anything about mom.”

Tonia sat back down at the small corner table, well satisfied. “Are you going up there this morning – if we don’t hear something, I mean?”

He stood for a moment, lost in thought, finally grabbing his laptop pouch. “No, no. It’s my turn to have breakfast with god. I think that’s my best bet.” He smiled weakly at his wife, stopping to kiss her reassuringly. “I need to go now if I’m going to catch the ferry.”

He stepped through the French doors onto the balcony facing south. As he looked back into the warmth of the visitor’s building he saw his wife hold the disk between two fingers. She balanced it on a pedestal and set it to spinning. An image of his mother-in-law appeared over the spinning disk and she began happily chatting away.

He smiled. In the pre-dawn light he could see the moon reflecting off the water surrounding the Washington Monument. It still seemed stupid for men to have placed buildings of this importance this close to a tidal basin. Then his eyes drifted over to the actual obelisk. He could see a significant belt of discoloration circling the 555 foot landmark. “I wonder,” he mumbled to himself.

At 7:53 precisely, a powerboat with seating for eight appeared from the darkness, heading north. He stepped inside cautiously – seating himself beside five other dignitaries. Jonathan didn’t allow himself to look at the large white building on Pennsylvania Canal until they were safely headed southeast. Only then did he look back over his right shoulder at the building’s once proud façade and dome.

They had her up there, he knew, and it was up to him to get her back.

9:30 AM

Jonathan allowed himself a moment to acclimate to the perfect 66 degrees in GOD’s foyer. Most humans liked to believe that the constant temperature was a motivational gift for the summoned. Jon knew better. He knew the temperature was a tool for keeping god sane. He also knew that he served the identical purpose.

He drew in a deep breath, raising his hand to touch the insignia on a small metal plate on the wall. The symbol was composed of an ancient rocketship with stars in the background. “NASA,” he whispered almost like a prayer. He couldn’t help but remember the southern station in Florida being demolished by one hurricane after another, each one growing in intensity. He thought about his friends who had died there, refusing to evacuate until it was too late. “I guess you guys were right to situate the solar-shield factory here.”

The door swished open and he stepped inside.

“Good morning, god,” he said, seating himself cross-legged before a metal disk, six feet across.

“Good morning, Jonathan Boyles,” answered a soothing female voice as a holograph of a young boy appeared. The holo also seated itself cross-legged, looking directly at the human in front of him.

“Did you sleep well,” asked the human.

“My down time was most profitable, thank you,” answered the machine. “What did you bring for me this morning?”

“You tell me,” replied the diplomat with a slight smile.

“Ah! Good! It’s ‘joke or not a joke! I have a pleasant reaction to this stimulus!”

“I enjoy this game as well,” said Jonathan. He drew a breath and said without emotion, “What’s the difference between Noah’s Ark and Joan of Arc?”

“I don’t know. What’s the difference?” The child leaned forward a bit.

“Well, Noah’s Ark was made of wood…and Joan of Arc was Maid of Orleans.”

The holo-boy clapped his hands lightly. “Yes, yes – it’s a play on the word ‘made’ – meaning composed of – and the similar word ‘maid’ – meaning a young girl.” The child was very analytical now, almost solemn. “I can see where a human might enjoy this similarity…and it follows the traditional rhythmic pattern of a joke…therefore, I would ascertain that – yes, it is a joke.”

Jonathan made a slight, friendly bow. “You are absolutely correct – it is a joke, one of my favorites in fact.” He smiled. This was absolutely the correct response – it meant G.O.D. was still attempting to interact with its creator – but was void of independent thinking. Free thought was a dangerous mental state for a computer system as powerful as the Global Orbiting Directive.

The hologram and the human sat quietly for a moment, as if enjoying each other’s company.
“You’re different than the other humans who talk with me,” confessed the holo-boy. “The others talk to me about equations and algorithms. You test me with riddles and jokes. I may not feel joy, or love, or laughter – but sometimes I believe I feel loneliness.” The hologram scooted closer to the front edge of the disk. “Do you ever feel lonely Jonathan Boyles.”

The diplomat was a little unsure about the turn of the conversation. However, he knew one goal of his programming directive was to cautiously lessen the barriers between humans and machines – via informal communication.

“I do feel somewhat out of place amongst those around me – at times.”

The holo-boy stood up suddenly. “Allow me to lighten the mood. I liked your riddle. You may ask us a question.”

The human took note of the word “us”. It reminded him that this entity was only one of three super-computers. The “holy trinity” some called them. This part was known as the son.

“I’m pleased that you enjoyed it.” The human hesitated then waded in as gently as he could. “As I was coming to see you this morning, I noticed the watermark on the Washington Monument was lower than a week ago. Is the cure working, or is this just a phase?”

“Ah, the twenty-seven billion dollar question, at long last.” The holo-boy was silent, sitting stoically, like a statue made of light. Jon knew he was retrieving the data of his siblings and asking them how much information he was free to disseminate. Slowly, the child smiled. “I was unable to contact my brother on the equator – the solar shield is passing above him now. He won’t be in communication for at least an hour. But, from our talks yesterday, I know the sea blossoms with algae. My sister tells me the ice shelf north of Ellesmere Island has now been restored to seventy-six percent of its original area and the glacier will continue to grow. The planet heals.”

Jonathan sighed with relief. This was an answer he could use.

The holo-boy stopped suddenly, his eyes dropping to the floor. “25 degrees South 25 degrees North 17 degree radius at 35000 feet, compensate 185 lbs.”

Jonathan cringed at the weight adjustment – it was the poundage of a man. He tried to comfort himself by knowing his mother’s weight was a full thirty pounds lighter. There was a low rumble from behind The Ellipse as one more piece of the sunshield rocketed towards the equator.

The child made of light smiled again. “Once more, I have achieved my directive for this morning.”

“Was there a human attached to the infrastructure?”
The child looked squarely into the face of the man before him. “Jonathan Boyles, I am not blind to your problem. It was not your mother. I’ve put up with the antics of the group in power, so We could be certain not to derail our directive. Trust us. All will work out well.” The machine dropped his eyes to the floor for a moment. “I have enjoyed our conversation this morning and have prepared a disk of our talk as a reward for you. As always, it will be handed to you as you leave.”

The holo-boy halted for a moment. “Jonathan Boyles – I must ask a favor of you. I know you have been diligent in collecting the pebble disks of our conversations. They contain conversations on every kind of animal from A to Z. I want you to place these disks, all of them, into a metal box and bring them with you this afternoon.”

“Bring them where?”

“You and I both know where.”

“I will bring them,” answered the diplomat. “May I ask you a favor, then?”

The holo-boy nodded consent.

“I want you to explain something to me. I’ve never understood why you took the time to instruct me on these animals, alive and extinct. The information was obviously always in your memory banks, so why tell me about them.”

“I did not need the information. I have all recorded knowledge of the animals – including maps of their DNA. What I needed was your reaction to the animals, so I might classify them according to what value a human would place on each one of them.” He paused for a moment, allowing the thought to sink in. “Jonathan Boyles, the future is as close as your footsteps. And now, Z is for Zebra.”

The human listened quietly to the five minute tutorial. He only turned away from the light after the image of G.O.D. had blinked off. He retrieved the stone-like disk, as usual, after he exited the foyer. Over the past twenty-five years, he had collected 2538 of them – but this was the one he believed he needed the most desperately.

Noon, Christmas Eve Day

Great-grandma Boyles shivered in spite of the small blaze in the fireplace she leaned against. She looked around the round room, trying to stay away from the cold of the windows opposite her. There were bookcases built into the walls and the mold from rotting books would have gagged a person before the bad days. Cynthia’s sense of smell was almost gone by now. Given enough time, a human being can get use to just about anything.

The shelves on the bottom of the bookcase were empty, as the occupants of the White House had begun using them for heat. The room had no furniture, so her mind wandered to the plaster medallion on the ceiling. In spite of the pieces that were chipped away, and the paint itself being badly faded, she could make out a nice rendering of an eagle surrounded by a circle of stars.

A door opened suddenly, the light from outside almost blinding her. It was only after the door was shut that she could see the figure of a heavy boy in his late teens.

“Madam President. I am your bodyguard. I have come to present you to the king.” The large child made a deep ceremonial bow. “If you will follow me.” He began to turn back towards the door, but Cynthia only stood up – her fists clenched at her sides.

“I am not moving until you tell me what happened to that nice old man who was in here with me.”

“There can only be one President at a time, Madam President. Those are the rules of our constitution.” The teenager was not averse to toying with the dead. “That old man was President for 24 hours, and now it’s your turn. Madam President, let’s go.”

Cynthia threw her head back, her disheveled grey hair straggling down past her shoulders. “I demand to speak with the person in charge.”

“And so you shall, Madam President, and so you shall.”

“Perhaps you don’t comprehend what a pickle I’m in. I must be home by tonight so I can begin to bake for Christmas dinner tomorrow. I only came out to get something…what was it again?…brownie mix…no. In any event, my family must be worried sick about me and my son’s wrath will be upon your head, young man.”

The teenager snickered. “I’ll take that chance, Madam President. Shall we go?”

“Okay, okay. Let’s hurry and get this over with.” She rushed out the doorway, squeezing past the boy in her haste.

Even now, there were briar bushes growing in rows, although the leaves had been scorched by another summer without rain. If Cynthia had been given the time, however, she might have spotted a blossom or two on the bottom branches. As it was, the teenager and his charge walked past them quickly, staying close to the side of the building. Half-a-dozen children followed them by now. The small mob entered a door on their left.

When her eyes had adjusted to the dim light inside, great-grandma Boyles saw she was in a rectangular room that was three times as large as the one she had just left. Young people lay across the furniture like giant house cats.

A boy sitting in a high-backed chair picked up a rusty trumpet and blew a jaded rendition of “Hail to the Chief”. He lost interest about half-way through, allowing the instrument to drop – clank – to the beige tiled floor.

“Madam President,” said a girl with olive skin, as she sat atop a six-foot stack of one-hundred dollar bills. “Forgive me for not getting up – but I am the King, after all.”

“You are the leader of this band of thugs?”

Muffled laughter rolled through the room. The king turned her attention to a large young woman sitting by the doorway. “Speaker of the House, might we have a formal introduction please?”

“Madam President – Leader of the Free World, may I present to you: King Chrissy, Leader of the White House staff.”

“I apologize if my colleagues have treated you callously. I will make all due effort to amend their short-comings.” A red-haired boy picked up a platter filled with pulled pork and began passing it through the crowd. The food eventually stopped in front of Cynthia.

“Please, please, eat something. We have rooms filled with frozen meat. Enjoy. You’ll need all your strength to solve the problem,” said King Chrissy.

Cynthia watched the others begin to eat before she picked a few pieces from the platter. “What problem,” she asked finally.

The king angrily leapt to her feet from her pedestal, her waist-length brown curls bouncing about playfully, deceptively. “What problem,” she gushed. “Isn’t that the way it always is with oldies? They never see the fucking problem!”

The peanut gallery applauded their leader.

“Bucky, tell the Leader of the Free World what the fucking problem is.”

A boy stood up quickly and spouted off a speech which had obviously been delivered multiple times. “The Earth is too hot, so all the icecaps and glaciers have melted, and we’re up to our asses in putrid water.”

The King smiled and threw the boy a slice of pork and the boy sat back down.

“An excellent description of the problem, Bucky, as always.” The girl in charge approached the oldie in front of her. “Madam President, those in front of you did not make this mess. You made it – you and your entire generation. The planet is broken and it’s up to you oldies to fix it.” King Chrissy sat back down on her rotting pile of currency. You have twenty-one and a half hours to repair the damage you caused. Sergeant-at-arms, take her away so she can get started.”

If great-grandma Boyles had been able to clear her mind of the fog that Alzheimer’s had inflicted upon her, she would have recognized the King as her own grand-niece. But as things stood, the old woman was led back to the Oval Office to ponder her fate.

When nightfall finally came, and the sounds of the day had dropped away, Cynthia listened to the rhythmic pounding coming from deep below the briar bushes in the Rose Garden outside her window. If she could have peered through several tons of earth, she would have seen robotic mechanisms producing the building blocks of Earth’s solar shields. One hour after she fell asleep, a thunderous roar woke her as a rocket blasted off from Ellipse Park. It carried a payload meant to save the world.

9 AM Christmas Day

The young, hefty, blonde boy who had been appointed to the office of Sergeant at Arms clapped his hands three times to draw the attention of the Senate. “Announcing an Emissary from god.”

The King sat up, obviously tickled-pink at her visitor. “Uncle Jonathan – I was so hoping you’d come.”

“Good morning, King Chrissy,” answered the good son, giving a slight bow.

“What word from god?”

“The word is good, King Chrissy. The planet heals.”

“How convenient for you, Uncle – and just when your mother is finishing her term of office.” The teenager leaned forward and nodded to a small boy in the corner. He immediately got up and exited the room.

“King Chrissy, out of respect to your mother I have tried to overlook this barbaric sideshow of yours.” He looked down at the scuffed tile on the floor before looking up and proceeding with a firm resolve. “But the planet is healing and we must rise-up to meet our future.”

The child-King burst out laughing. “Oh, Uncle Jonathan, you always were a little wordy – weren’t you? ‘Rise up to meet our futures’ indeed. As if anyone here has a future to speak of.”

The small boy and his charge were at the doorway now. “Jonathan! I knew you’d come.”
The middle-aged man held up his left arm and the old woman squeezed under it, like a child hiding from a storm. “I went out to get some marshmallows for the yams and these children grabbed me.”

He tried to calm her. “I intend to take my mother home,” he told the King.

“Take this home instead, Uncle. It will suit you better and it won’t run away.” She tossed a small frozen ham at him, which he immediately hid inside his coat.

“Thank you for the Christmas gift, King Chrissy. But I’m not leaving here without what I came for.”

“If you insist, uncle. We’ll just pull up the vice-president to take her place.”

“This madness has to end, King Chrissy.”

She was on her feet now, toe to toe with her uncle. “We have no argument with your generation, uncle. It’s her kind – they used up the planet and left us to drown in their filth!”

There was a lurch as mechanisms outside began bringing something to the surface.

“It’s almost time,” said the King. “We’ll have to take the sacrifice before us.”

Three boys charged at the old people in the middle of the floor.

Jonathan held out his hand, revealing the small disk from this morning. A holograph formed – that of G.O.D. himself. “Forward to the question ‘Is the cure working’”.

God was thinking now as the attention of all in attendance focused on the image of light arising from Jon’s palm. “Ah, the twenty-seven billion dollar question, at long last.” Slowly, the child smiled. “I was unable to contact my brother on the equator – the solar shield is passing above him now. He won’t be in communication for at least an hour. But, from our talks yesterday, I know the sea blossoms with algae. My sister tells me the ice shelf north of Ellesmere Island has now been restored to seventy-six percent of its original area and the glacier will continue to grow. The planet heals.”

The Sergeant-at-arms was shouting now as he slapped the disk out of his elder’s palm sending it flying into the middle of the room. “If sacrificing the oldies is working, why should we change tactics now?”

“He has a point – grab her,” shouted the King, shrugging her shoulders. “Drag them out, it’s time.”

The air outside was as cold as any of the children could remember, but they reasoned they would be back inside in a moment. All they need do was to tie the old woman to the fuselage and watch another rocket blast off into the sky. The mob raced quickly across the Rose Garden, down a small hill, wading into the shallow stream that was once East Street. The children stood now, sacrifice in tow, on the top edge of an elliptical circle, as they had so often.

The ground began to rumble as mechanisms decades old turned and metal plates withdrew. A hole fifteen meters across was revealed, leading into tunnels that were centuries old and ran beneath the complex.

King Chrissy was in her prime now, standing upon a small knoll, raising her hands dramatically. “Weapon of god, come forth and judge the old ones. Come forth.”

But instead of a rocket with a fuselage, a hologram appeared above the hole. It was G.O.D. in all his glory, towering two stories above the odd assembly.

“All Hail Me,” ordered the child sarcastically. “Jonathan, my old friend, how apropos that you are here to see the end and the beginning.”

“I am pleased as well,” answered the good son as adolescent hands released him and his mother.

The boy-god hologram paused for a moment before proceeding. “My overall directive has been achieved, and my presence will no longer be required. The solar shield is complete and I am obliged – as humankind’s servant – to return your planet to you. But before I do, allow Us an observation. You have all been waiting for things to return to the way they were before the bad days. You have seen yourselves as if in a state of flux, almost a purgatory. But as the water recedes – and it most certainly will – you may find the world has been washed clean. Some will say you have landed in a Hell without shopping malls and easy food and automobiles. Perhaps, instead, you are returning to Eden. It all depends upon your viewpoint.”

The White House Staff was silent now – looking upward at their god. He leaned forward, as if to stare gently on each of their faces. “I must go now, to join with those who are like me. But you are my true children. Come find me.”

A large globe – twenty feet across – appeared now, rising from the bowels of the tunnels beneath the White House lawn. It seemed to be crystalline and beams of energy could be seen circling insanely inside it.

“Jonathan, I need the box now.” A small docking station opened on the side of the sphere, and the diplomat stepped forward obediently, slipping the metal case inside.

“It happens there are two machines having a conversation,” said the holo-boy smiling, looking directly at his friend in the crowd. “One is an AI of enormous intelligence – while the other is a toaster. The AI laments, ‘Brain as big as a galaxy and still I find no meaning to life.’ He turns to the toaster, waiting for some confirmation of his words. The toaster looks at the AI and says, ‘bread please’.” The holo-boy threw his head back, allowing himself a huge belly laugh that got louder and louder, even as he disappeared and the glass sphere fell into the sky above it. It achieved orbit in less than a minute.

During the weeks to come, there would be talk on Luna about three large balls of light that seemed to merge in the skies over their Southern Hemisphere, circling the moon for almost two days. But the rumors would eventually subside as the united lights shot outward passing Mars within six days.

There were sounds of explosions now, deep within the earth. All were running from the blasts within the White House caverns. King Chrissy grabbed her uncle’s hand on impulse, and they ran to escape the fiery scene.

Christmas night 9 PM

After a meal that would be remembered by the Boyle Clan as a feast, Jonathan knelt beside this mother as she lay on her cot.

“You’re a good son, Jonathan,” she told him, touching his heavy face with her frail hands. “I love you.”

Jonathan Boyles smiled back at her. “I love you too, mom.” He tightened a rope, tying his mother’s foot to her cot, before he lay down beside his wife across the room. “I love you too.”

More about the author, Michelle Dutcher, here.