pink sky

Minneapolis in Space

Minneapolis is moving into orbit today. The city will lift off to space after several years of preparation. The entire city has been contained in a large dome and will use nuclear power both for propulsion and as an ongoing power source in addition to solar power. It is projected that solar power will be able to meet all of the energy demands of orbital cities within five years time. Several buildings from the outlying areas of the city will lift off on their own or in smaller domes.

Minneapolis will be the fourth city to make the transition.

shadow skyline

The Horror of the Jolly Zombies

The day before had been a perfectly normal day. The night before She cooked her special meal and went to bed as usual. But when she awoke she soon discovered the world was not the world of yesterday.

It was a hot day but a cold wind persisted. Linda Verner left her Chicago apartment and set off toward the redline. Linda’s stride gradually slowed as she began to take notice of the people standing on the sidewalks and in the street. They all seemed to be gazing at separate object of profound interest.

A happening, instance, whatever they’re called. Linda was sure that must be it. This was an art demonstration of some kind. She had heard of handful of these that had been surreptitiously organized in major cities across the globe. Linda picked up her pace and determined to ignore everyone at get to the office. What she desired right now was cheap coffee and normal rational behavior.

Linda let out a sigh as she the turnstile gave way. She took comfort in the rhythm of her foot steps on the wooden stairs. tip. tap. tip. top. tap. tap. top. top. tip. tup. She could hear the automated el coming as she reached the top.

At first Linda thought that people were standing in the car around her because the seats were all full. In fact, not a single person was sitting down. Rather they all stood around smiling stupidly. Linda could feel heat in her ears and tension in her neck. Some of the people on the train turned to stare at her. “How long are you all planning to keep this up?” Linda shouted. A train full of smiling idiots was now staring at her. “Well?” spat Linda. The smirking mob began to crowd in on her. Linda panicked and flailed but nothing could raise any reaction from the encroaching wall of bodies. She could barely move at all now. The doors to the train opened. With a huge burst of adrenaline Linda forced six bodies out of her way, barely managing to squeeze through the doors as they closed. Linda flew down the stairs onto Sheridan. Alone under the elevated tracks she hunched over her knees to catch her breath. Three tears dripped from her eyelids to to spot the pavement.

“Hey there!”

Linda jumped. There was a woman running toward her, trench-coat blowing like a cape. She looked sane, at least in relation. The woman was breathing heavily but one could not be sure whether this was due to physical exertion or merely from excitement. “I’m so glad to see that I’m not the only one left in the city. My name is Vanessa Helsing. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Linda… Verner.”

“Let’s head toward the University. Don’t worry about the zombies. They only seem to be attracted to anger.”

“Do we have to call them zombies?”

Hours pass in the University laboratory yielding no results. “I’m not sure that we have a thread of hope for discovering what is wrong without the assistance of a qualified neuro-chemist. Now we’ve wasted all of this time and we haven’t aren’t even sure how many people are left sane in the world. I’m sorry. I’ve failed us both, perhaps failed us all.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. None of this is your fault and you’re lucky that you’ve even had the chance to look for a solution. Come on, let’s go celebrate being alive, really alive, while we still can.”

Vanessa’s lips curl into a warm smile, a real living human smile. Linda takes her hand and leads her out of the laboratory.

The sun is blood red on the horizon by the time they make it back to Vanessa’s flat with looted wine and cheese in hand. Vanessa collapses onto her big ruby colored sofa.

“Shall I find a knife and a couple of glasses?” Linda starts opening drawers in the kitchen. A basket of garlic catches her eye. I’m surprised that you have garlic.”

“Yeah, you have to kill for it these days. The shortage is really bad.”

They drink and dine. They tell stories and share secrets. Linda loves seafood. Vanessa can’t swim. Vanessa’s hand rests quietly on Linda’s thigh. Vanessa’s eyes burn Linda’s ears. Faces drift closer as minutes pass. Shoulder’s rise and fall with the exhalation of wine and cheese and… “Garlic!”

Linda tests her breath with her hand. “I’m sorry, is it on my breath. I had some last night.”

“So did I! Linda, that’s it. The garlic must have counteracted the effect. Whatever is at work here must be vulnerable to garlic. We have to get this garlic back to the university.”

“Now? But it’s dark out. It could be dangerous.”

“We don’t know if we can afford to wait. The effect on people could become permanent or lethal. We must act now if the city is to be saved.”

With Linda’s aid, Vanessa creates a terrifying garlic based arsenal. Pistols calibrated to fire garlic pellets. Garlic gas grenades. Garlic coated daggers. Over the next few days huge portions of the city were cleansed, but with each passing days the jolly ones grew more resistant. Luckily with each cleansing came one more warrior in battle against the jolly hoard. Within two weeks time the entire city of Chicago was completely cleansed.

Strangely, neither the source of the outbreak nor the reason why it was indeed confined to the Chicago area could ever be confirmed. Rumors blamed mad scientists, aliens, the devil, the military industrial complex, and of course the pharmaceutical industry. What really happened will probably remain forever uncertain. All that is certain is that Linda Verner and Vanessa Helsing once saved the city of Chicago with a few cloves of garlic.

To this day, they are always in close contact.

City in the Stars

It takes about 80,000 years to reach the Alpha Centauri Star System with only conventional thrust. If they have found ways to go faster they haven’t told us.

My name is Ged and I am a member of the 16,000th generation of passengers aboard the Centauri Peonix. We count generations in increments of 50 years. Our history is some 20 times what earth’s history was when we first embarked. We will reach Alpha Centauri in my lifetime.

Our journey began in 2075 with one of our ancestors Sasha Telerov. He was part of mission control for the Mars missions during the 2050’s. This was the first major breakthrough in space exploration since microbes were discovered on Ceres and Vesta. He used the renewed appreciation for space exploration from the Mars Missions and the knowledge that life existed outside of earth to build momentum for the first colony ship. While nobody felt truly comfortable sending people on a voyage from earth that would take 80,000 years to complete, waiting 80,000 years for a probe to demonstrate the viability of the Alpha Centauri system was equally intolerable. If humanity was to make the leap into space it needed to happen when people were ready not when technology made it convenient. There was certainly no shortage of eager colonists. Sasha Telerov assured his critics that even if colonization of a planet in one of the nearest star system didn’t work out colonizing space would still be an important step in human progress.

In any case the volunteers were present and the funding was raised. In the end ethical concerns were drowned out by the roaring cascade of currency. Over the next decade the ship was constructed in orbit around the moon using materials mined from earth, mined from the moon, and mined from the asteroid belt. The ship’s official name may have been the Centauri Pheonix, but everyone lovingly called it the city in the stars.

Sasha Telerov sadly did not get to see the edge of the solar system. He died just after passing Satern. His body was left in orbit around Europa. Perhaps some day creatures will make there way up onto the surface of this moon to see the glimmer of Sasha Telerov’s coffin floating silently above.

The city in the stars is home to about 50,000 people. Not much compared to a normal city perhaps, but quite a lot of people to have living in single building. Of course by now far larger colony ships have been constructed. Our’s is small because it was first. We often remind ourselves that we were first whenever we find ourselves comparing our city in the stars to other colony ships. Afterall, about 80,000 years have past since we left Earth. Other ships are bound to be far more advanced than our own. We’re probably better off not thinking about that though. I think that perhaps the people back on Earth feel that way too. It seems we learn about technological advancements decades after they occur, and not just because it takes 5 years for information to reach us from Earth.

They say people on Earth live a lot longer now, what with made to order organs and advanced regenerative medicine. Some even live forever by downloading their brains into digital forms. We just don’t have the resource to make a lot of new technology. Besides, a few millennia ago, I don’t know how many exactly, we lost a lot of things. They say we used to have a quantum computer on board and that it was entangled with a computer back on earth. They say we used to be able to access the Earth networks in real time all across the ship. Now we only get occasional packages in the form of light pulses ever few months.

Most of the time here it is peaceful, otherwise we wouldn’t have made it this far. But ever so often bad things have happened. There are a lot of sections in the history logs that seem to have gaps in them.

Because resources have to be managed carefully only one child can be born per person per lifetime. As such everyone is sterilized after puberty. At this time gametes are stored for the production of children. During puberty safe methods for exploring sexuality are presented to everyone. Every few years there are a couple people who break the rules. The punishments for pregnancy are very harsh. Those who have been reprimanded rarely ever smile for the rest of their lives. Everyone understands the importance of managing reproductive cycles but many feel very uncomfortable with the treatment of natural parents. I am one of only 10 people in the colony who were born live. I don’t live with my birth parents but I think I know who they are. I think they aren’t allowed to talk to me. Anyway, I know who they other natural born people are because we all have belly buttons and the other kids made fun of us when we were in school. I’m the second youngest of all of us. The oldest is about 120. She is probably going to die soon but she really wants to make it to Alpha Centauri. She says that on Earth they could just freeze her to keep her alive for a little longer but the colony doesn’t do that because there isn’t enough storage space and it wouldn’t be fair to freeze some people but not others. I hope she makes it.

Apart from being made fun of, I really like school. I’m a very good student. I really like philosophical history. I get in arguments with Prof. Caleb about certain periods though. He doesn’t think that the big brother era on board was such a bad thing, but I just wouldn’t be able to handle being watched and wired all the time. The one thing I tend to agree with him on is the ethics of violence. The only time when violence is justified is when it is in self-defense. Even the the colony has been under dictatorship things have worked out better when he has been removed by social forces or natural death rather than revolution. In that sense it is probably good that nobody lives forever within the colony.

The period in history that I like best is the happiness period. Everyone on board had been very depressed for centuries, nobody seems to no exactly why. I think it was probably around the time when the quantum computer was destroyed. So a person named Lani got a whole bunch of people together to find new meaning. They all talked for several months making lists of things that seemed important and why. They also did extensive research into the old psychological studies on human behavior and happiness and stuff. Then they did a number of surveys with everybody about what they liked and disliked about the colony and about what heir interest were and stuff. So then they mobilized everyone into doing different projects. Most of the murals and recreational operating systems that we have on board were created during this period. It was actually a very long period in history. The only other period that is this long is the big brother period which came later. The big brother period came after the ban on natural birth was lifted and a religious group gained popularity. The birth rate rose too high, resources became scarce, then the only way to save the majority was to do something with the group responsible. Once the crisis was over everyone wanted to ensure nothing like that ever happened again.

We say that we are in the productive period now. Everyone is spending a lot more time in education than we used to because we want to make sure we are in the best possible condition for colonizing a planet when we make it into the heart of the system. Most of us are also working on projects that prepare for specific scenarios that we might encounter.

We collectively have been waiting a very long time for this impending moment. The chance to start a new world. It feels like we can do anything.

“Alright class. Today I thought that it would be worthwhile to have to have some discourse instead of following the syllabus as usual.” Prof. Tyse is an interesting person. She always seems to be far more awake than anyone else. They say she prepares her meals at home from raw ingredients instead of ordering her food like most people and that this has altered her brain so that she can go for days without sleep. This is her literature course.

Bec raises a thin finger to her cringed forehead as she interjects. “Are you allowed to do that?”

“No, I’m not, but if anything happens to me it would seem that the big brother era never came to an end after all, and that would be a far more useful lesson than anything else. I think it would be nice to talk about starting a new world though, don’t you? I’m sure you don’t want us adults deciding everything for you? It’ll be your world after all.” Prof Tyse’s eyes smile behind the round spectacles that sit upon her pointed nose. Her hair is red and she has sad eyebrows. Only two or three dozen people on the ship wear glasses. Most have laser eye surgery.

“I’m sure everything has been planned adequately over the last 80,000 years. We should have faith in the institution.”

“Faith?” Larle interjects. Her hair is big and dark as are her eyebrows as is her voice. “I think we all know where faith gets us, into the airlock without a suit. The only way we can be sure of anything is to test everything and see what fits together. Accepting anything as fact without checking it to the best of our ability makes us vulnerable to mistakes and to vulnerable to others’.”

Before I can stop myself a excitedly spout out that’s coherentism with my geekiest voice inflection. Larle smiles at me from the side of her face holding back a snicker.

Bec doesn’t look very happy.

“It seems like the discussion has already started. So what I would like to do is try to put together your ideas about what the guidelines, laws, or institutional structures on a new world should look like. Let’s maybe start with what some of the problems have historically been back on Earth with governments, economies, etc. If anyone has any notes from old social theory courses those could be useful too.

I’ve remained pretty close with everyone who was in that class with me. I think we tend to have a hard time getting comfortable around other people in physical spaces unless something forces us to work together on something we can all really invest in. Otherwise we just meet and interact with each other through the nets. It’s easier to interact through the nets  because that certain degree of detachment or anonymity help free us from social awkwardness. I think in person we are all always a little autistic at times. In any case it is nice every once and a while to feel comfortable around someone without an avatar.

During the virtual period on board direct human contact wasn’t allowed unless absolutely necessary. Everything including classes was done through the net. Only children who were still developing were allowed to be in physical proximity to other people. We don’t develop properly if we live on the nets from birth. The history logs don’t say but I have a feeling that we were still directly connected to Earth back then. People probably still had normal jobs back on Earth through the nets and stuff. I’ve never done it but I know that it is really easy for a person to remote control a robot body through the nets. People would probably have been paid through recreational downloads. These days people have to do whatever job they are best suited for. Most people don’t need to be paid, but if people refuse to work they have one of their recreational programs with held or something like that. I don’t know that much about it just that it is something where the rules seem to shift every decade or so. I hear there are a few people with really important jobs who get paid somehow. I don’t know how exactly. Maybe with something physical that is actually scarce like fine cheese or something. Because we have freedom of information now, it is hard to keep people from having access to anything on the nets unless they have done something wrong.

We have gotten close enough to the star system to see Alpha Centauri A and B really clearly. We should be at the most likely candidate in the system for colonization in less than 10 years. I’ll be 30 then. I can see Proxima Centauri from my room. It is too far away to see any detail though. The distance from Proxima to the other two stars is about 7% of the distance from A and B to Earth. That’s about 10,00 or so years out for us. Proxima is leaving the star system now. I guess they’ll have to change its name. We might be changing the name of the other two stars as well now that they will become our suns.

As expected Deinos looks very promising. We are sending down a probe today. The oldest of the natural born died yesterday. She was able to see our new home before she died. Perhaps she will be buried there. Everyone is very excited. Hopefully there won’t be any terraformation needed. Of course if there isn’t, that also means things already live there.

In about an hour the probe is on the planet surface. Everyone patches in to watch through the ships nets. We already know that Deinos is larger than earth and that it has about half as much water. The probe confirms that the atmosphere contains oxygen. However the atmosphere is also full of gasses that are poisonous to humans so at the very least we know we will have to wear masks. Of course we would need to do that anyway to protect against whatever microbes or spores may be in the air. We will probably need to wear full suits until we can create a few safe bio zones for ourselves and fully immunize which could take decades. The probe analyzes a soil sample. There are indeed microbes in the soil. We can see them. It seems like some of them might have some sort of chloroplasts. That’s a good sign. We may be able to grow food at some point. So far so good. I can hear people screaming in excitement down the hall from me. The entire residential sector seems to be a big party right now. The probe is now moving toward an area suspected to be forest. We tried to observe it from the ships telescope but the area was to cloudy. What seems to be a line of giant umbrellas begins to fill the frame as the probe gets closer. Upon closer inspection these trees seem similar to ferns or palm trees. As there is less water on the planet this makes sense. It seems strange that the trunks should be so tall when competing vegetation is not present. The only other plant seems to be a sort of moss that carpets the ground. The reason for the hight of the trees approaches. A massive black creature approaches the probe. It looks like an elephant crossed with a giraffe. It has a long neck and a head with pointed ears. Attached to the head is a long trunk. Either it doesn’t have eyes or they are too dark to see against the creature’s black body. The creature begins to inspect the probe with its long trunk. Unlike an elephant’s trunk this creature’s entire mouth seems to be at the end, teeth and all. After a few minutes the creature loses interest and moves on. The probe ventures deep into the forest. Little new life seems to show itself until a strange mound of reddish dirt is discovered. It is apparent that something lives here. Whether large ants or rodents of some kind there is no way to tell. There are footprints, but these could be attached to any type of body imaginable. It is almost night on the planets surface. The probe finds shelter and goes dormant.

I’m woken up by Larle. She tells me she needs to talk to me. I am mortified, but I oblige. On my way I wonder why she doesn’t just use the nets. Larle seems distressed.

Larle yanks me into her room and shoves me against her wall. She has tin foil on her head and her eyes are wide and scary. “Ged. Can I trust you? Before I say anything, I need to know that I can trust you.”

“You can trust me.” I can feel confusion creeping across my face.

“You haven’t been to hospital before right? You don’t have any implants or anything? All natural?”

“As far as I know. Why?”

“There’s something strange going on Ged. I’ve been following this trail for awhile, right? I think it has something to do with implants that they can only put in you while your being grown, or with breeding or something. I’ve hacked into the control center system.”

“You what!?”

“Just hear me out, okay? There are things they aren’t telling us. Gaps in history and stuff. I think there is something about the system that they aren’t telling us. Look, don’t you ever wonder why the big brother era came to an end?”

“Yeah, I have.” I finally feel comfortable enough to sit down.

“They say it got phased out as people began to feel safer and as they began to care more about being informed. I think the people who were in charge just allowed people to think that they had given up that stuff. I think they started to put devices in people while they were still developing into babies. Maybe they did other things to. I’m not sure that before the big brother era children were raised the way they are now. I think they’ve really been messing with us. I’ve done an X-ray of myself. Ged… There’s something in my head. That’s why I have this on my head. I’m running electricity through it so they won’t be able to read my thoughts or anything. Do you believe me Ged? Or do you think I’m crazy?”

“I think Everything you’ve said is definitely feasible.” I want to believe her but what she’s saying is pretty out there, not impossible, but…

“Ged. There are others out there. I’ve seen it on the ships sensors. Someone’s coming Ged.

The search is halted the next day. An alien ship has approached us. It seems that this system may already be inhabited by intelligent life. I suddenly find it hard to breath. If Larle was right about this, what other secrets might the people in charge be hiding. I feel an urge to swallow but can’t make my body do so. This is only the third time, at least officially, that humans have made contact with other beings like ourselves. So far interactions have been cordial. The others always seemed to have some sort of distaste or maybe pity for us. In any case, as far as I know none have ever been willing to share technology with us. The alien ship isn’t sleek. It is relatively skeletal. These one’s seem new.

Several days later we have established rudimentary communication with the others. We have told them that we are colonists. They have told us that they live in the ocean of this world. It seems that they aren’t even as technologically developed as we were when the city in the sky left Earth. They do not feel comfortable having us share a planet with them but understand that we have come a very long way. They will help us negotiate with their leaders. If they do not accept us our alternative will be to move on to the only other planet in the system that may be able to support life. It is not an ideal location and will almost certainly require years of terra-forming, perhaps centuries worth.

We have shared this planet with the Gelion for three years, Deinos years in relation to Alpha Centauri A. We have already managed to physically adapt to the environment. We can breath the air here without aid, eat some of the food, and walk the planet’s surface with natural gait even though we have only been walking with a magnitude of gravity equivalent to that on Earth for the better part of our lives. The Gelion are interesting creatures. They are telepathic, though they say our minds are to strange for them to understand. They seem to have taken a very different evolutionary course to our own, apart from simply having evolved in the ocean. They are far more cooperative creatures than we are and do not know how to lie. There life cycles are also very different from our own. They do not have two sexes in the same sense that we do. They have a male sex for the first segment of their lives then a female segment in the later part of their lives. They also have a certain percentage of the population that is very specialized. For example some Gelion do not seem to be conscious. They serve as the archives of information and networking hubs for the Gelion. In fact the Gelion, as telepaths, do not use any written or spoken language at all.

We have traded some technology with Gelion. They have shown us how to use water as a catalyst for fusion. They’re also very good at making powerful lenses out of water. We have shown them how to build and use basic computers. We also put on some fireworks for them. We hope to construct embassies for each other over the next couple years. I feel pretty great about our future here. Lately, Larle and I have enjoyed watching the dual sunset in evenings. It is so strange to be living on the surface of a planet after an entire life in space. It is so strange that their even are planets. Balls of rock in an endless void. It is strange that their should be anything at all.

Something very strange is happening this morning. There are people walking around that I have never seen before, human people. They wear funny clothes and have bizarre accents, like the ones in really old movies… Larle.

As I expect she is in her room looking jolly.

“What did you do?”

“I just let them out. You know all of those bourgeois brassturds were planning on using us like slaves. They already have been. Here all these years we’ve been told that nobody could be frozen if they were about to die because there wasn’t enough space to store 80,000 years worth of bodies and it wouldn’t be fair to allow only a few people to be preserved. All this time these rich people from earth have been our cargo all this time. They were hoping that they could hitch a ride with us, let us build a civilization here, develop the technology to cure them of whatever terminal illnesses they have, then help them to live forever while in the meantime the rest of us all die in turn up until that point. Well, if I can’t afford to live forever neither can they. They should just die happy that they had the opportunity to see two entirely different star systems from a planet surface while most of us died without being able to see any.”

I wonder silently if making rich people suffer the same fate as poor people counts as violence. Surely they don’t deserve to live forever anymore than the rest of us, but does that mean that they don’t deserve at all to live forever. Those of us who have lived on the city in the sky our entire lives our used to life without money and without scarcity. Will future generations return to the old ways? To old class systems?

The captain of the colony arrives. It seems Larle wasn’t as careful about erasing her hacking trail as she usually is.

“How did you find me? Did you use the nets? Or did you decide to tap directly into my brain using my chip.”

The captain turns to his first officer. “Bec, what is she talking about? Was she given an implant without consent?”

Bec looks to the left. “I thought you knew.”

The captain waits.

“Everyone who is eligible, that is everyone except for the natural born have them, sir. I don’t know why. Only a few people know about it. It has been done for centuries, at least.”

The captain turns to Larle. “I’m not finished with you. I’m going to talk to the medical staff.”

It turns out that nobody knows what the chips are for. However, that isn’t the only thing that was done to people without consent. Over thousands of years we have all been apart of a Eugenics program. We have been selected to be intelligent, resilient, and unreligious. I can’t say that I think we are worse off because of this, but I also think that this is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. I’ll make sure that the Eugenics movement makes it into the philosophical history logs. As for the chips, I suspect that they are related to Gelion somehow. Perhaps to help us communicate or vise versa, to keep them out of our minds. I’m not sure. Also, they let Larle off the hook. Nobody really cares what special treatment a bunch of supposedly rich people are supposed to get. Still, I don’t know if I totally agree with Larle’s decision to take them out of the freezer. These rich brassturds probably funded everything just so that they would have the chance to live a long life in a distant place. We don’t have the ability to refreeze them.

“I was on salvage duty today and I came across something strange. Check it out, Larle. Any idea what this is?”

“It looks like computer chip. This should be about the size of the implants. Where there more of these?”

Larle spends the next several months analyzing brain implants. She reaches a disturbing conclusion. The chips take in sensory information from the brain then transmit it. It seems that these chips have been responsible for many of the most volatile periods in our history. Before the quantum computer which was entangled with earth’s nets was destroyed. These chips could have been used to control people, perhaps from birth. It is also possible that some people responded poorly to being meddled with and found a religious explanation for anything that happened to them while blacked out or possessed or whatever may have been done to them. The worst part of course was that there were people within the colony who must have known at least some of what the chips could be used for who implanted them anyway and ensured that multiple generations would continue to do so. Our people, these poor colonists are broken hearted. Looking into their eyes I can see bottomless sadness and debilitating hatred. Are there still people back on Earth living vicariously through these colonists. In a little over 5 years time, will they experience this awakening. Will they feel dirtied as these people feel. What does the offender feel as he looks out from the teary gaze of the violated? Was it a person from earth controlling the body of a colonist and ravaged by guilt and self-hatred who set us on a path to freedom by destroying our quantum connection to the nets of Earth? I hope somehow this moment of searing pain will somehow heal the human organism. How do the Gelian, as telepaths, live? Are they always in the minds of another? Do they know intrusion as we do? Some of the people who know I am natural born turn against me. Why was I spared?

At this point we come to an ethical nexus. As a people to we choose to start an inquisition in order to weed out those of us who unforgivably intruded upon the privacy of others, or do we let these crimes go unpunished? I’ll be sure that whatever we choose to do will be carefully recorded in the philosophical history logs. Lastly, how and why did all of this come about? It still seems that something has yet to come to light.

I can’t help but feel sorry for all of the confused and dying rich people wandering around. It is strange to think that they are all over 80,000 years old. The history books from their childhood only went back 5000 years or so before their lifetime. I decide to approach one of them. I would like to record some of these people’s memories on a disk before they die, philosophical history is still my favorite subject. The man tells me that his name is Sasha Telerov. He has quite a story to tell me. It is a story about implants as insurance that we colonists not turn against our Earthbound ancestors. It is a story about sleeper agents from Earth having the potential ability to invade the bodies and minds of colonists. It is a story about class and power. Sasha’s tale blackens the golden image of himself that has been carved into philosophical history logs. It seems our noble journey has been rotted to the core from the outset. For 80,000 years we have been plagued by the savage heart of man.

I wonder, here on this new world, Deinos, will we finally be free from our savage past? Or will we pollute even the green oceans of our aquatic cousins with greed, fraud, and fear?

Tonight as Larle and I sit on the rocks by calm waters, the dual sunset seems vastly melancholy and exceeding beautiful.

quarter

the quarter lay there wedged between the girder and the concrete. the crowds pass close by unaware of the small treasure. the quarter spends its days weighing the value of currency in exchange for for purposeful ponderings. everyday for a few minutes it catches a glimpse of the sun just before the foot traffic wanes to a stop for the evening. adjacent buildings are eventually turned down and rebuilt in dynamic sweeping fashion. the roads and train tracks ascend higher, weaving through the skyline. the clacking of foot traffic transforms into a melodic hum. the quarter remains an isolated entity in a sea of change.

City of Consciousness

Something seems amiss. I feel as if I have forgotten something, but I’m not sure what it might be. I have the sensation of standing on air. I remember my whole life clearly. There are no gaps. There can’t be anything wrong.

I don’t sleep well tonight. My dreams are filled with death and drowning. No matter how hard I try I can’t break the surface of the water. I can’t take a full breath of air. Death is all around me. People are dying all around me. I can’t see them or hear them but I can feel them.

My friends are not sympathetic. They disregard my discomfort. It remains untouched at the edge of their plates as we split the check. My physical is this afternoon. I walk to the clinic alone.

There isn’t anything wrong, but they do the scans and take the same samples they always do. I hate going to the clinic. All the plastic and humming gets inside deep inside you, through your head and into your gut. It just stays there. You can’t digest it.

I find a note in my hand. They are killing you. I leave the clinic feeling that something is wrong. Something has changed, something that has changed many times before. The note is still in my hand. I can’t go back to the clinic. Something bad is happening there.

Weeks pass. I am scheduled to return to the clinic. I don’t go. I ignore the calls. There is knocking on the door. They force me to go to the clinic. They remind me that the health of the community depends on my own health. They remind me of my civic duty. They force me into the scanner. They take samples from my skin. I leave the clinic.

I leave the city. I find a device on my person. They are watching me. I destroy it. Weeks pass. I am due at the clinic. Nobody comes for me. My skin begins to turn green. I feel strange. I feel bad. Something starts to grow from my body. I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid to go back. I’m afraid to return to the clinic. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. My body gets grows weaker.

I leave the clinic. I try to leave the city. They stop me. One of the guards says not this time. I don’t understand what he means. I see the city clock. The date is wrong. It says that it is several weeks later than it should be. I don’t understand.

They take me to the top of a tall building. They take me into a fancy office. There is a man there sitting at a black desk with the back of a silver chair forming a halo behind him. His window provides a panoramic view of the city. But the room is still dark, as if it doesn’t accept light from outside.

The man talks to me. I am going to tell you a story then I am going to give you a choice. Are you ready? The human brain has an incredible mechanism. It allows this thing we call consciousness to come into existence. It allows it to persist over time. This consciousness provides continuity for all of the relations the brain makes between time and space and memory and identity. Do you know how this consciousness, this sense of Being is ignited and perpetuated. Every moment that sense of I is being destroyed and replaced with a new sense of I. That new I perceives itself as the last I just as it too is destroyed and replaced. We think of ourselves as the same person we were years before. In truth we are nothing but placeholders, ghosts. I hope you are following.

Now, here in this city. We have mimicked something that consciousness already does. It has allowed us to create a city of peace and progress and order and health unrivaled in the outside world. You yourself have been destroyed, body and all, thousands of times since your conception. Every time you have gone to the clinic you have been taken apart and replaced with all new parts exactly like the old ones. You are in a way only a few hours old, though you can remember years of experience. Now you know.

Of course, now that you know you can’t be allowed to return the city. You can’t be allowed to leave for the outside world. You can either join the council or we will close your existence indefinitely. If you join the council, you will be allowed to participate in the administrative functions of the city.

I ask if joining the council might give me the power to change the way this city is structured.

That is not a function that the council performs.

I want to spit in the man’s face. He is a liar who plays God over thousands of lives every day. He is a mass murderer. He knowingly oversees a daily genocide. But I am afraid to die. Even if I have died hundreds or billions of times, the sensation of life, of Being is too real to ignore. I choose to join the council. Perhaps some good will come of it. Even if I am choosing the life of the puppet. It seems better than no life at all. I am lead back to the elevator. I will begin a new life. I am tempted to attempt an escape. I hold myself back.

Another me awakens in the wilderness. A friendly face looks down on me. I see you got my note, says the friendly face. Come with me. I’m going to take you to a faraway place. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be free.