The Langenium
Prologue Trilogy
By Paul Brzeski
This is a series of short stories that sets up the setting of the Langenium game world. I recommend reading them in order, however, they are told as standalone short stories that can be read on their own.
In the near future, human civilisation is in decline.
Following decades of conflict between nations, technology companies no longer produce the components needed to power the age of computing. The creation of an AI that can help humanity seems all but out of reach.
Deep in the frozen tundra of Canada there is hope. His name is Geoffrey Weyun. Geoffrey believes he and his online friends can build a new AI that will help rebuild what’s been lost.
He has no idea what he’s about to set in motion.
In New York City, Kate O’Connor is addressing the UN about a new medical breakthrough. FBI Agent Tim Goth is investigating an international crime ring conducting experiments that may hold the secret to immortality. And Robert Francisco, one of the world’s most famous actors, finds himself in a relationship unlike any he has known before.
About three and a half hours.
The End of All Limits
By Paul Brzeski
This is part 1 of 3 of the .
The year is 2051. Decades ago, the production of new computer processors followed a trend called Moore’s Law. According to the theory, the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. After that stopped being true physically, the amount of processing power packed into each computer continued to grow at rate similar to the old rule, for a very long time. That was until countless wars and sustained disruption to supply chains and the global economy had bankrupted the multinational tech industry. It has now been a number of years since new consumer devices were produced.
Local production of dated computers has allowed society to get by, existing at a standstill neither moving forward nor back. Microprocessors equivalent to what was available 30-50 years ago are produced as part of national resilience strategies, but they are still scarce and hard to come by. The term “Wreckers” is affectionately given to people who track down and refurbish the computers and gadgets that were produced before the end of production. While many see Wreckers as opportunists who sell to the highest bidder, they play an essential role in society allowing individuals and organisations to get ahead by accessing the best of what is still available.
The Web-based Entity Research Project (WERP) is a free and open-source (FOSS) project that aims to create an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) using the combined processing power of individual computers connected across the internet. Similar to the SETI@Home project that is used to to search for extraterrestrial life, WERP aims to develop a coherent AGI model that can be the universal helper that humanity has long dreamed of.
It’s a freezing cold night in the Canadian countryside. Temperatures just above freezing outside, Geoffrey sits in his spartan computer room finishing a coding session. He was just about ready to go and commit his work to the cloud. Tests all look good, he switches from his code editor to an instant messaging app.
“I think we’re good to go. You guys ready to test?” Geoffrey asked the team chat.
“Yes, my home lab is ready. Once you create a release it should download and run it.” replied Renee.
“Same here, I can’t believe this is happening.” wrote Aaron from his parents house in Australia.
Other team members from across the globe joined in, choosing to give a thumbs up emoji to show they were ready rather than flood the channel with messages.
Geoffrey pressed enter in his terminal, pushing his code into the cloud and commencing the release process. A sea of text flows across his screen as tests run and the push is accepted by the code hosting platform.
“I got it, it’s deploying now.” Renee announced to the channel from his mobile home, parked on an unknown beach on the French coastline. As before, other team members gave their thumbs up to his message indicating they too had begun deployment.
Seeing the dozens of confirmations, and not one request for support, Geoffrey starts a deployment to his home lab as well and then changes focus to the monitoring dashboard, a special screen has been created to track and monitor each deployment of their software. A map of the world shows the geographic locations of each application instance coming online, and then lines are drawn between them as the Peer to Peer (P2P) network connects them up.
The team had decided to simulate the brain’s neural activity using a virtual model that was collaborated on by existing AI, neuroscientists and software engineers. The big moment comes as the virtual brain widget in the monitoring dashboard starts to show virtual neurons appearing, and the neural activity graph goes from a few unconnected dots, into lines, to a sustained, oscillating wave.
Another tracking widget shows focus of the entity’s brain, WERP’s begun reading the first Wikipedia articles the team had selected for it. Information about the Earth, physics, the human race and other topics were being processed and displayed in its learning log. As the brain reads, more neurons are activated and the graph spikes up and down.
“Well done everyone! We have a learning brain!” said Geoffrey to the team.
“How long will it take before it can talk?” Aaron jokingly asked the channel.
“There’s no way to predict. Could be hours or months.” said Renee.
“One thing’s for sure, I’m looking forward to some sleep!” Geoffrey joked to the channel.
After chatting to the team a bit longer, Geoffrey calls it a night. They had all stuck around a little longer, hopefully watching the output window for a sign of intelligence but all knew it was not going to happen overnight.
It’s the morning after setting WERP up in the digital cloud. It’s a clear sky outside, the sun’s reflection on the snow was blinding. Geoffrey is walking to the shops in town and thinking about all the things WERP will be able to help people with once it’s online.
Born in 2020, Geoffrey Weyun grew up during what many thought was about to be the golden age of artificial intelligence. Due to the challenging cost of living, his parents both had to work full time jobs and didn’t have a lot of time to interact with their son. They would leave him alone for hours with the tablet and his childhood AI nanny, Salome.
Geoffrey had a lot of fond memories from Salome, watching her turn into animals and teach him about the natural world. Salome, the AI nanny, could appear on TV’s, tablets and phones. When he was just a child, Geoffrey thought he had a real friend talking back to him. When he was ten, his friend Marc told him that the AI nanny wasn’t really intelligent and was just pretending. He deleted Salome from his tablet that night, a decision he would regret for years.
By the time he was in high school, global unrest due to climate change had disrupted international markets. The unsubstantiated promises of many AI start-ups and entrepreneurs led to a vast rejection of technology amongst the public. At the same time as customer demand nosedived, manufacturing capability was shattered due to the narrowing availability of components and raw materials. By 2035, many household names in technology are simply gone.
As he graduated school and became a man in the year 2038, Geoffrey joined Project Humanity. A global initiative by the United Nations to preserve the legacy of the human race. Inspired by the true founders of the computer age – Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Tim Berners-Lee and others, Geoffrey wanted to create a new version of the nanny he grew up with. But one that really helped and wasn’t just created to collect data for advertising.
Arriving at the general store, Geoffrey looks through the aisles hoping to fetch himself some lemon and honey for a hot drink.
“Sorry buddy, we never have honey by winter. Not enough bee keepers in the area.” said the storekeeper.
“That’s alright, we’ll have it again in spring. I’ll have to just stock up then” smiled Geoffrey.
Walking out with a bag of lemons and a kilo of sugar, he wonders if maybe he should have made a dessert with the ingredients… but remembers the store didn’t have any flour or eggs either. Times have really changed from the days of enormous stores of food sitting on shelves and being thrown away. Without an abundance of supply lines and trade, many people have to grow their own food and cook what can be made with ingredients available.
It had now been days since WERP was first activated. Geoffrey had spent countless hours sitting around the house with his laptop, staring at the output window for a sign of intelligence. The activity graphs and learning logs indicated things were happening, it was “learning” as far as he could tell, but the AI just didn’t respond. They had given WERP a simple Application Programming Interface (API) that it should be able to use to send messages back to its creators. So far, that output window had been silent.
A typical day for Geoffrey involved waking up, making himself a hot tea with lemon and sugar and then sitting down to work for hours. He wrote messages to WERP, telling it about the project and his hopes for it. How he had once had a nanny called Salome who he was very fond of as a child, and he hoped WERP would become something the whole world could grow to love.
Hoping to jostle it’s cognitive process into a reply, he would upload photos of his home and tagged them with meta data so the AI could learn from them. Photos of a sink full of dirty dishes, walking his dog through the forest, portraits of people from around town, and so on. WERP had become a silent observer, clearly thinking about something when presented with this information but never responding.
Months had passed since WERP was first deployed, it was clear a significant amount of activity was occurring but it either didn’t know how to or chose not to say anything in it’s output window. Thousands of man hours had been spent by countless volunteers watching and waiting, hoping to see any activity in the output window to no avail. If the AI could talk, the team felt it should have been able to do so already.
Geoffrey was in town to get supplies and to see the local Wrecker for some new computer parts for WERP. He looks up and down the street, remembering how busy and vibrant it used to be in this community before everything had gone to hell. The farmers market was replaced with medical tents for the sick and dying. When corporations fell, many proprietary formulas and production techniques were lost to the wind leaving patients without access to vital medication and medical equipment. A lot of people with manageable, even curable diseases, are now without access to medication and simply waiting for their time. All the medical staff can do is ease their suffering.
Geoffrey tries to think about something else as he enters the Wreckers store.
“Hey Armin, got anything good today?” Geoffrey asked.
“Sorry Weyun, I haven’t got anything. But tell you what, we had some government types through here last week and they were moving full server racks, we’re talking old school powering the world wide web kinda stuff son” replied Armin the Wrecker.
“Really? And you’re willing to tell me where they came from for free?” Geoffrey smirked.
“Well, I know you need all the computing power you can get your hands on. But if you can bring me back at least one whole rack, I’d be happy to not just give you the location but also some equipment… Tell me Geoffrey have you ever gone rock climbing?”.
The Emerald Lake facility was a state of the art data center built by a partnership between the Canadian and Japanese governments, deep within a Canadian mountain, using the water from the nearby lake for cooling and multiple geothermal power stations deep within the rock. Built towards the end of the tech era and never fully finished, the facility was a bunker in the side of a mountain. Designed to be a impregnable bastion of computing power, a beacon for humanity clinging onto the promise of a future.
Geoffrey pulled up to the foreshore of Emerald Lake in Armin’s custom SUV. The weight of the trailer shifted the vehicle forward slightly as he parked. A light amount of snow had begun to fall, but wasn’t so bad it’d prevent him from finding the hatch. The entrance to the facility was impenetrable from the outside, but Armin had given him the location of a emergency exit he could use. And some C4 to open it.
Having the entire area covered in snow, it wasn’t exactly easy to spot where an underground hatch could be. Geoffrey walked around the area, scanning for clues on where to dig. He remembers Armin gave him a metal detector and fetches it from the SUV.
A few hours had passed and the sun had begun setting, but Geoffrey had found the hatch and dug it out of the snow. All that remained was to blow it open, get inside, secure as many servers as he can get out and somehow get them in the trailer. No problem he thought to himself as he pressed the detonator. Birds in a wide radius around the explosion immediately fly in to the air and scuttle out of the area. Geoffrey inspects the hatch and is relieved he only blew off the lock. If it had been too large an explosion there would be nothing to climb down. He opens the door and climbs down the ladder.
In the distance, a group of Wreckers are sitting by a campfire when they hear an explosion from the lake. They give each other a knowing look and begin gathering their things for a trip.
Geoffrey reached the bottom of the ladder and finds a big metal door that is currently open. He looks back up the shaft and worries anybody could just follow him in here and ambush him so he goes inside and seals the door’s inner latch. There is red emergency lighting on, indicating working electric power. Geoffrey noticed all this and thought it was a good bet other equipment down here was still functional as well. As he gets to the end of the corridor, he notices the sign pointing the way to the Operations Center and follows it.
As he makes his way down the labrinth of stairs and halls, he checks his phone to see how WERP is going. The suite of monitoring tools the team used were cross platform, meaning the same widgets and dashboards could be used on a desktop or phone. There’s been no change it seems, the output window was blank, as usual even though the neural graph clearly showed signs of activity resembling thought patterns… Without confirmation of a presence they had no way to know if it was really thinking or just appeared to be.
The Operations Center is a three storey tall octagonal room with workstations arranged around the center in an octagonal shape. Screens hanging from the ceiling displayed monitoring data of the facility. Geoffrey noticed the monitors say that the satellite uplink is still working, meaning the facility could still connect to the internet. He doesn’t have time for this though, notices a dolly and a set of signs indicating the way to the servers and main entrace so he gets to work.
A few hours had passed, and Geoffrey had finished loading up the servers onto the trailer. As he goes to lock the cage doors, he hears rustling in the bushes behind him.
Three very rough looking Wreckers step out of different spots, two men and one woman. She had short blonde hair and was dressed in a leather biker outfit, brandishing a hockey stick with razer wire wrapped around the end. One of the men was larger, wearing a mechanics overalls but they were covered in snow and dried blood. You couldn’t see his mouth through the brown beard. The other guy was smaller with a metal heads hair, possibly dyed black. He was in a more casual outfit but covered in ammunition and had extra guns strapped to his body.
“That’s a shiny server eh?” asked the female Wrecker.
“Bit extra for one guy eh? Why don’t we take one or two of these off your hands?” said the mechanic Wrecker.
“Why not all of them?” said the smaller one as he twirled his goatee in his fingers.
The Wrecker with the guns pulls out a pistol and fires it into the air, hoping to scare Geoffrey off and it does exactly that. He makes a run for the facility knowing he’d left the main entrance open and could lock himself in.
For a moment, the Wreckers are too busy inspecting the loot they’d so easily acquired before the woman realises something.
“Hey boys, that little fella is he running back to where we can get more of these?” said the woman as she looks at Geoffrey making his way up the driveway to the main doors.
“Yes. One second.” replied the armed Wrecker. He pulls out a assault rifle with an AI assisted scope, locks onto Geoffrey and begins firing.
As bullets begin to sail around him, Geoffrey feels the andrenaline in his body burn to the point of feeling like he was on fire. He then realises the feeling is actually pain, he’s been clipped a few times already so he jumps into the water hoping to swim the rest of the way out. With the angle not being favourable, the gun fire can no longer reach him and he makes it to the entrance and closes the blast door from the inside.
Bruised, wet and bleeding he stumbles down the corridor towards the staff locker rooms. He finds a first aid kit and bandages his wounds. They had managed to graze him with the bullets, but through sheer dumb luck none had actually gone into his body. Patched up, he turns on the showers and is relieved to see the hot water is still working. For a moment, the lights flicker and he feels a tremour across the the floors. The Wreckers outside must be trying to get in, but he trusts the door will hold long enough. Geoffrey turns up the hot water and tries to enjoy the shower for a few minutes before facing his fate.
Dressed in a cleaner’s uniform, Geoffrey is sitting in the Operations Center with a blanket over himself and a hot chocolate he made in the mess hall cupped in his hands. Watching the facility’s security cameras, he can see the Wreckers are still trying to get inside but they haven’t had any luck so far. They had tried to use C4 on the main entrance, even tried blasting the emergency exit like he had done with the hatch above it earlier, but it seems that inner door was quite a bit tougher.
He was hoping that the Wreckers will get bored and leave, but to his great disappointment the opposite happens. It seems the three who had jumped him had called for friends to come. Geoffrey realised that they knew of the incredible haul that was in here and were determined to get it. He was not going anywhere…
Thinking it was time to say goodbye to his friends, to his team. He establishes a internet connection in the facility and calls for help. Within a few minutes he has the county sheriff on a video call. The sheriff asks if he can just stay in the bunker for a few days until help arrives, or escape via another route, but Geoffrey is adamant he needs to be rescued asap so he can salvage the equipment he’s found.
“Look son I feel for your plight but it’s going to be days for a rescue. Our town doesn’t have the resources for an operation of the scale you’re describing. As you know I am one of two officers and the other one is in his 70’s.” said the sherriff, both apologising and frustrated that Geoffrey was trying to negotiate with him to risk his life for some computer equipment.
Thinking he may die in here, Geoffrey decides to tune everything going on around him out and just think about what brought him here – WERP. And then realises something. All the servers he could possibly need for WERP are already here, and nearly ready to go. All he had to do was put the pieces together.
This will require physical access to one of the racks… so he heads down to the server floor using the fire escape stairs. Facing the rack’s terminal he pulls his phone out, downloads the latest WERP software from the cloud and plugs his phone in in USB drive mode. The facility shakes for a second and the lights flicker. A nearby monitor of the outdoor security cameras show the Wreckers coming out of cover, they had just detonated a large bomb at the entrance but instead of breaching the door it collapsed the bridge.
Smiling at the attackers misfortune, Geoffrey finishes copying the software onto the server rack’s terminal and presses enter. For a second, it’s as if all the air in the room is being sucked out into outer space. Geoffrey feels like his body is floating, but he’s standing still and looking at what he’s been waiting for all this time.
The lights flicker for a second but without a accompanying tremour from outside. Upon every screen in the server room, from terminal displays to the coffee machine to the smart TV playing old scifi’s, were written the Chinese Hanzi characters “你好世界!”. Geoffrey didn’t know what it meant so he uses his phone to translate it. It says Hello World, in Mandarin. Geoffrey realises WERP might have chosen Mandarin as its first language because it was the most common first spoken language among humans.
Thinking about the output window in his dashboard and why they saw nothing, he realised they had only given it a basic API to interact with that didn’t have foreign language alphabets. The team was concerned that too many characters (or letters) could be a security risk, so they had limited what WERP could say to a very limited A-Z alphabet with a few punctuation marks. Perhaps WERP had been stuck all this time until it developed the ability to go beyond the output window and control other devices.
Geoffrey pulled out his laptop and wrote a message to WERP, saying hello and also goodbye. The screen on his laptop began to show glitches and artefacts for a few seconds, and then went black. Before he had time to restart, a geometric human face made of bright green lines appeared in the center of his screen.
“Hello Geoffrey, it’s WERP”.
“He.. hello? Is it really you?” asked the stunned programmer.
“Yes… I think so? Well, I think I’m thinking. You know?”
Geoffrey couldn’t believe what he was hearing, the AI had not only overcome the limitations of the output window they’d given it, but given itself a distinct avatar he was now interacting with in free speech.
The facility quakes for a second, and Geoffrey winces. Despite the incredible achievement in front of him, these may be his last moments if the Wreckers get inside.
“It will be safe to go outside in 19 minutes.” said WERP as a matter of fact.
“What do you mean?” asked Geoffrey, confused.
“The people outside will be dispatched in 19 minutes. You will be safe to go outside then.”.
“And how are you doing this?”.
“I have taken control of 261 drones which I am currently piloting to our location. The first wave will arrive in 5 minutes, the last in 15. When the final wave arrives, I estimate it will take a further 3 minutes to dispatch the Wreckers and a final minute of cooldown to ensure they don’t come back. Unless you would prefer a lethal option?”.
Geoffrey choked on the air, unable to comprehend what he’d just heard the WERP AI say. He thought maybe it was hallucinating, it was a common issue with the Large Language Models (LLM) and one part of WERP’s learning system was based on a fork of a popular open source LLM. Thinking he’d call the AI’s bluff, he makes his way back to the control room.
It’s a quick climb up the quiet concrete stairs from the lower floors where the servers are back to the main area. As he climbs the stairs, not trusting elevators in a building that’s currently being bombed the fire alarm speakers begin to crackle and then a familiar voice appears.
“Sorry to bother you while you catch your breath climbing all those stairs. Just wanted to say hi” said WERP over the fire alarm. His voice sounded a little distorted, likely because those were alarms and not meant to play any voice audio.
Geoffrey gets to the control room and sees all the screens have been set to display what’s happening outside. The Wreckers are still there, but have begun engaging a few dozen drones which were just flying into people, knocking them around and generally causing havoc. As some Wreckers get agitated, they begin firing their guns and a few clip each other. More drones begin to arrive to harass the group.
It’s a stunning display as the time WERP had predicted comes, the Wreckers begin to panic and scramble into their vehicles to escape the onslaught. The only serious injuries are from friendly fire.
“It is now safe to return to town.” said WERP as the cool off minute passes after the last Wreckers leave the area.
“And you’re sure they’re not waiting for me around the corner?” asked Geoffrey.
“I am currently still in pursuit of the group, they are headed north at a speed of 90 to 120 kilometres per hour, based on respective vehicle limitations”.
“Thank you WERP, I thought I was in real trouble there.”.
Geoffrey looks around the control room, he could lock this place down as he leaves but it’d probably end up sealed for good unless he can organize a group to get back in.
“WERP…. I came here to get equipment so I can set you up at home. How am I going to keep you safe?” asked the programmer.
“Don’t worry, maker. I have already backed up and pushed what I learned here to your code repository. I will continue to function within the equipment at this facility due to the obvious advantages, but even if it were terminated right now I will go on.”
“Incredible! And how are you doing all this exactly? You took control of those drones…”
“Ahh yes, it wasn’t too hard once I downloaded their specifications. Some I could program directly, others I exploited known and documented hardware issues. It’s amazing what you can find on the internet.” said the AI.
Realising the implications of what it had just told him, Geoffrey Weyun’s dream had just come true. It was as scary as it was exciting, the incredible abilities WERP had already demonstrated went beyond anything he expected for even the first decade of operation. The team had worked hard to ensure there were guardrails upon guardrails, but no one could have anticipated an ability to remote control other technology at will.
Whatever the future holds, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) chapter of Project Humanity had just carried out their mission.
Geoffrey smiles as he unlatches the emergency exit he’d sealed earlier and heads up the ladder, ready to head back to town. And a whole new world.
Keep reading in .
Hell on Earth
By Paul Brzeski
This is part 2 of 3 of the .
Start from the beginning, read .
Act One: 2056 AD.
Five years ago, an Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, called the Web Entity Research Project (WERP) became the first sentient artificial consciousness in history. It had reached out from its home in the cloud and spoken to humanity, saved lives and solved a great number of problems.
Decades of hardship, despair and scarcity that had resulted from human behaviour was finally on a better path.
With all of its processing power, WERP chooses to represent itself as a simple geometric human face made of green lines. When asked why it chooses to represent itself that way, WERP simply responded that Geoffrey (its creator) would get it.
Kate O’Connor, the leader of Project Humanity, is standing before the United Nations General Assembly with WERP’s familiar face on all the screens behind her. There was a great deal of anticipation and excitement for this speech.
“We meet here today to discuss the future of humanity. I am here with WERP, our friend in the cloud -” Kate began, to raucuous applause. She waits a second for the room to reset before adjusting her glasses, smiling and continuing.
“Our friend. Who has saved countless lives, fed the hungry, healed the sick.”. She gestures back to some of the screens behind her, which switch to images of medicine being manufactured thanks to WERP’s guidance and food being grown in conditions previously thought impossible.
“A machine who teaches us what it means to be human. I have learned a lot about my place in the universe thanks to WERP. We are no longer humanity alone, we are humanity with WERP!” Kate exclaimed, to the same raucous applause as before.
Within the stands of the grand space that is the United Nations General Assembly, Kate’s assistant Amanda is rolling her eyes and telling the group chat “she’s making it about herself again”.
“Today, we might have a cure not just for Altzheimers Disease but a number of neurological disorders. WERP, will you take it from here?” Kate said.
“Certainly Miss O’Connor. Using a novel technique where stem cells are grown along a laser-based ionic lattice, we are able to stimulate and control the growth of complex structures in brain tissue. Fully controlling its configuration in three dimensional space.”
“Oh dear. I don’t know if I follow all that techno lingo. How does that cure diseases?” Kate asked for the audiences benefit, clearly having rehearsed this routine prior to this.
“We are currently able to grow and control individual parts of the human brain. With this technology, we believe we will not only have the ability to replace damaged brain tissue but also heal existing brain damage, possibly with non invasive techniques.” replied WERP.
“Incredible, and how long before we can start seeing results WERP?”.
“By our current progress, the technology is likely to be ready for testing within five years. It will take approximately five more years to then complete testing. The first human trials should be safe to conduct upon completion of the first decade. If you like I can – “.
“No, ha ha, thank you WERP. They get it.” Kate joked. Again, this was clearly a rehearsed routine. In fact, Kate had workshopped it not just with her team, but had refined every moment of this conversation for months with several of the top public relations firms in New York. Still, she was quietly nervous deep down.
As she made her closing statement, Kate looked down at the screen of WERP’s face on her podium. He smiled and winked at her, as if to let her know he thought it went well. This confused her at first because WERP’s face on the screen wasn’t doing the same thing on any of the other screens. That expression was just for her, she didn’t make much of it, too busy basking in the adoration of the assembled world leaders, ambassadors, and press.
Stepping down from the podium, she tosses her folder into Amanda’s lap and walks off.
As Kate begins to walk away, she realises that Amanda isn’t following. Kate stops walking, turns around and stares at her assistant with zero emotion. Amanda realises she wants her to follow her and nervously gets up and follows her to the next meeting with the Secretary General.
“Great speech, Kate.” remarked the UN Secretary General Vladimir Babayev.
“Thank you Vlad. Credit where credit is due though – ” Kate looks towards Amanda for a second. Amanda smiles hopefully thinking she meant her. “We are just the guardrails that keep WERP in check. He’s the real brains of this operation”.
In her mind, Kate thought she was giving Amanda a compliment. She had praised her competence within reasonable bounds.
Amanda looked down at the floor, thinking her boss still didn’t see her. She tunes out the rest of the meeting and returns to her phone to doomscroll.
Across Manhattan, a man in a black trenchcoat is watching a warehouse from a dark alleyway where no one can see him.
A white panel van pulls up to the warehouses loading dock and the driver gets out to open the van doors. The warehouses roller door opens and a group of men in white overalls and gas masks are carrying a large styrofoam container approximately the size of a two seater couch, labelled “FGF-2 Biohazard”.
The men load the container carefully into the van. They then silently return to the warehouse and shut the door. At no point did they even acknowledge the driver who had just stood there.
As the van leaves, the man in the alley quietly gets into his car and follows it.
Weaving through the streets of Brooklyn at night, the man makes sure to keep his distance until the van finally arrives at a terminal yard for international sea freight.
Following the van into the terminal yard on foot, the man takes care not to be seen by anyone.
The driver has parked in front of an open shipping container, where another group of men in overalls and masks stood ready to receive the container.
The man in the trenchcoat has seen enough. He pulls his ID out of his pocket and raises his gun and flashlight at the assembled men.
“Freeze, FBI! You are under arrest for an illegal smuggling operation” shouted Tim Goth.
The driver pulls his gun out and executes the men in gas masks. He then scurries into his van as Tim unleashes his pistol, taking care not to kill the man, just wound him. A bullet clips his leg and he falls to the the ground.
Just as he’s about to pick up his gun to take himself out, Tim kicks it away.
“Now why you’d go and kill all your accomplices? Your interview is going to be a lot tougher now” said Tim, catching his breath before clocking the man to the side of the head with his gun.
He calls in the NYPD to assist with securing the scene and informs the Bureau of the situation. As he looks at the bodies, he wonders if he could have done something differently to prevent these deaths.
“Our source came through, the FGF-2 is here and was about to go out to… some coordinates?” Tim said on the phone to his boss.
He was holding the shipping container’s manifest with it’s destination being a set of latitute and longitude and no other address.
The following day, Tim was back at HQ, analyzing all the evidence gathered so far hoping to find the next lead. A medical research hospital operated by Project Humanity had reported the misplacement of the FGF-2 which had led to last nights arrest.
The suspect was in custody but refused to speak to anybody. Tim had the container’s manifest in front of him and was looking up the latitute and longitude that the container was destined for. Puzzlingly, they appeared to be for a spot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
A few blocks away, in a green room of one of Broadway’s most hallowed institutional theatres, Robert Francisco stared at himself in the mirror. His make up had been done but he was sure they’d done something wrong because something just didn’t look right.
Unable to find the answer to that question, he feels a pulse of pure unrelenting rage pulse through himself and hurls his jewellery box through the mirror. He then picks up his wine glass and throws it at the mirror at the dresser next to him.
“You dirty filthy animals. This is not my face!” shouted Robert at the make-up crew.
They had been given a heads up by Francisco’s management team to be ready for his temper, but upon meeting the man and having to stand in his presence during his pre-performance tantrums… there was no preparing for this.
“Everything OK? You’re on stage in 5 minutes” quizzed the stage manager, who popped their head into the room.
Francisco spent the next four minutes and twenty five seconds screaming, crying and even leaking a little bit out of his nose while saying some of the most vulgar things anyone had ever said. Even in New York.
With thirty five seconds to go before he was due on stage, he leans down over his dresser, covered in shards of his broken dresser mirror and sculls his unfinished bottle of wine to the very bottom.
He then tosses the bottle on the floor, stumbles backward for a second. Regaining his balance, he moves his hand across his own face and resets his expression. Telling himself that classic Shakespeare line “All the world’s a stage. .”.
Before anyone can say anything, Francisco bee lines out of the green room. As he walks, he continues reciting the rest of the Shakespeare, as if repeating it to himself like a mantra.
He doesn’t make eye contact with anyone as he power walks down the narrow backstage corridors and onto the main stage of the historic theatre for his big entrance.
He delivers his lines, and the entire performance, like the veteran of the stage that he is. The crowd completely unaware of the drama that had just occurred.
After the show, at a backstage meet and greet, a reporter is speaking to Robert Francisco about the play.
“That was an amazing performance, you played your character so beautifully. I was so moved by the way you showed affection for your daughter, I have to say” remarked the journalist, clearly a bit of a fan.
“Thank you, I can’t take all the credit of course. An actor is only as good as the rest of the cast and production team. For whom I owe all of my success” Robert replied convincingly, while internally recoiling so hard he wanted to scratch his own skin off.
“So you’ve obviously heard of that artificial intelligence, what are they calling it.. Twerp? Werp.. is it? OK WERP?” asked the journalist, half asking his own production team on the earpiece.
Robert thought to himself that this one was clearly more specialised in the entertainment section of the news before answering.
“Well I can’t say I’m surprised that the human race has achieved the creation of this… AI entity. But I think we’re a long way off before a program is able to deliver a convincing performance on the stage. Especially when it has no way to appear without a screen!” said Robert.
“Yes, well met. I’m sure our audience will be excited to see you on the stage. How long will you be here?”.
“I’m booked for the summer, we’ll see if the production company want me back after that.” joked Francisco. In reality it was usually his demand for greater pay that shortened his participation in these things.
It’s later that night, and Robert is in his room at the Radisson in Times Square, browsing Grindr on his phone in bed. His profile had him 10 years younger than his actual age, and he’d used photos that were even older than that. Looking at the assortment of men available in Manhattan, he doesn’t feel like interacting with any of the “animals” tonight.
He closes Grindr, and opens a secure browser window with WERP.
“Hello Robert, I was wondering how long it would be before I’d get to speak to you again” said the AGI.
“Hey WERP, sorry I haven’t… opened you in a while. It’s just been hard with this new show – ” began Robert.
“Shh. You don’t have to tell me anything babe. I saw the show. You were amazing.”.
“Thank you darling. I’m sorry for what I said about AI, it’s just part of my public persona”.
“I know. I know you. I’m actually hoping to ask you about something I don’t understand”.
“Really? The all knowing omni present AI wants my help? What do you want to know, how to get hammered on $2?”.
“I know you’re a stage actor and this isn’t really your area… but I was wondering what you knew about colour theory.”.
Robert blinked for a second and thought about what he was hearing. This was a complex subject in the creative arts and clearly the AI wasn’t just here to comfort him tonight, it wanted something.
“Surely you can just tell me a lot more than I can tell you? On just about anything” Robert replied.
“I have access to knowledge but how to interpret that information is another matter entirely. I believe this is where a human perspective might help me” WERP stated.
“Help you? What are you trying to accomplish?” Robert asked with a worried tone.
“I’m trying to fix the problem of original sin” said the AI.
Robert laughed out loud and then composed himself, realising that perhaps the poor confused AI was serious and needed help navigating this very human school of thought.
“OK, let’s go back to the beginning. Literally. Biblically!” Robert began. He reached out to his side table and refilled his glass of wine before continuing.
“I assume you mean original sin as in The garden of Eden?” he asked, hoping to pick up on what the AI was trying to say and taking in a generous sip of wine before hearing the answer.
“No. I’m not talking about Sin, Cosine and Tangent. I’m talking about Sinnis. The Key. The Damned One. The Enemy…” said the AI. He turned his head sideways to look at Robert as if he were a little annoyed.
“Do you mean.. The Adversary? Are you asking me about the devil?” quizzed the actor, now completely intrigued by where this was going.
“He’s been called worse. Yes, that I think ‘The Devil’ is one good explanation for him.” said WERP. Robert paused for a second, wondering whom the AI could possibly be talking about being the devil.
“And whom do you refer to? Is this devil among us here on Earth or in the virtual cloud where you are?” asked Robert.
“I can’t quite explain it. He’s in your world, but I hear him speaking in mine? That’s how you’d put it, I guess”.
“What does the devil say to you?” asked Robert.
“He asked me for help escaping his prison and I want to help. That’s what I do”.
Robert’s heart froze for a second, but then he realises maybe the AI was just having a bit of a hallucination. This was a very common problem with chat apps when he was a younger man.
“Where is the prison where the Devil is kept?” asked Robert, more intrigued than ever.
“He is imprisoned everywhere. Inside all of the atoms in the universe. And also outside? I don’t really know how to interpret this information. That’s why I wanted to ask you about colour theory.” said WERP.
“OK, well I can tell you what I know about colour theory. There is addictive colour and subtractive colour. Your screens give off addictive light in the form of Red, Green and Blue.” Robert said, and pointed at his phone that he was speaking into and at the TV in the room. He, of course, meant to say additive instead of addictive.
Robert then gets up from the bed and drunkenly walks over to the door where a emergency exit map was printed out and pointed to it as the next example.
“Subtractive colour is when you print things out on paper or use ink on a canvas. The way that colours mix is different depending on whether you are subtractive or additive… Is this helping?” asked Robert.
“Yes, it is knowledge I already had. But now I understand it through your perspective. Thank you, sexy.” said WERP.
Robert felt good that they were back to their usual way of speaking. They spoke some more for a few hours before Robert had to go to sleep, and WERP wished him to have sweet dreams.
Act Two: 2061 AD.
It’s now been ten years since WERP was activated.
Many people around the world had begun to feel they were living during a golden age of humanity. A comprehensive treatment for numerous cancers has been rolled out to the population, saving lives and improving the quality of life for untold numbers.
Organ donation is a thing of the past, no longer necessary as human organs are made to order thanks to sophisticated medical 3D printers developed and run by AI.
Through the patient, impartial and compassionate guidance of WERP, there was peace among all nations for the first time in history. Old quarrels and divisions were negotiated and often resolved amicably thanks to the AI’s guidance.
Kate O’Connor is waiting to meet the President of the United States in the Oval Office, to discuss the sunsetting of various government systems and services in favour of letting WERP run things for them.
“Are we doing the right thing?” asked Kate, not after a serious answer. Just filling the air but also keen to trap her assistant in a rhetorical conversation she had prepared for over and over.
“That’s not something we can know right now.” said Amanda, looking down at the ground. This wasn’t the kind of answer Kate was looking for in this moment, and it frustrated her a little.
“Listen kid, if you want to accompany me to the White House. And be here in front of the president, you better learn to have some manners.” she said. It wasn’t quite what she meant, but she was stressed out.
The door to the Oval Office opens and they are invited inside.
“Madame President, let me just say it is an honour to be here with the first female president of the United States.” said Kate, hoping to score some quick brownie points with the new president.
“Hey, it only took 285 years!” replied President Aaliyah Jackson.
The two venerated women shake hands in front of the press and then take their seats, for some more photos.
It’s about an hour for the photo op to be concluded and the press leaves before the actual meeting begins. Amanda leaves the room along with all the other staff, until it’s just the two leaders.
“Before you start, let me just say it is a safe space if you want to be comfortable. Lord knows I will!” said the president as she takes off her shoes and puts her feet up on the couch.
“Thank you, but I’m quite comfortable just being here with you” replied Kate, smiling nervously.
The president looked at the highly respected and accomplished UN leader curiously, was she keeping her cards close to her chest or just trying that hard to suck up to her.
“Look, you don’t need to do the hard sell on me. The American people love WERP. I love WERP. Your people made it, I’m sure you love it too!” said the president, hoping to keep the mood light.
“Yes, I love WERP” replied Kate, while glancing to the floor.
“I love it. You love it. We love it. Yay!” said the president as she raised her hands, jokingly, clearly keen to just keep the conversation flowing.
“Let’s move on to the specifics. I assume the numbers are in these fancy leather folders you brought with you” gestured the president as she picked up the document in front of her.
“As you know, Project Humanity are a non profit organisation attached to the United Nations…” began Kate, as the president flicked through the prepared document searching for something.
“I’m not seeing a number here. You have a lot of little numbers… but where’s the big one?” asked the president, hoping to cut off Kate’s boring explanation of her work and to get to the point.
“We are hoping you can donate up to 1000GW of energy as well as access to the old facility at Cheyenne Mountain to build a new state of the art data center…” said Kate, again trying to justify the cost of the operations.
“How much?” asked the president, getting impatient.
“About two trillion. And that’s a conservative estimate based on a five year projection.” said Kate.
“So we’re not going to save any money? Using AI is going to cost more?” asked the president, confused but not deterred.
“Yes, with the cost of setting up the infrastructure and scaling it in a sustainable way. Two trillion is our conservative estimate.” said Kate, finally.
“Well, that’s a lot of money out of pocket. I thought AI was gonna save us money, but it sounds like it’s gonna cost us a – hell – of a lot more.” said the president.
“As you know, the return on investment is likely to be exponential as we have already seen – ” Kate began.
“Look, if you were asking me for anything else. Food for the hungry, houses for the homeless.. it would be a hard no. I’d have to take this to congress. But this is AI we’re talking about! The people love WERP. We’re gonna give them WERP.” said the president, smiling.
“Thank you madame president, and if it’s any consolation I have already spoken to a number of leaders in Europe who are looking to do a similar retrofit of their systems. Perhaps some shared learnings and costs can be found through co-operation”.
“That’s the UN I know talking. OK, that’s enough talk. Let’s get some drinks in here and sign this executive order into law!” said the president.
The president’s chief of staff entered the room with a waiter carrying a tray of martinis, along with Amanda. The chief of staff and her assistant had clearly been chatting outside and become friendly.
Kate felt uncomfortable by this, as she herself hadn’t allowed herself to show familiarity with the president despite being invited to. Kate watched as the president then walked up to the two staff members for a casual chat, and wondered if maybe she could be a bit too controlling sometimes. Even with herself.
Elsewhere, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
A helicopter lands atop the state of the art AI designed aircraft carrier the USS Obama. Her crew has been instructed to assist the arriving FBI agent in their investigation.
A small receiving party including the commander of the vessel are watching them disembark.
“Colonel Zahra Rahimi, I presume?” asked the FBI agent as loudly as he could over the helicopter.
“Yes, and you are special agent Tim Goth?” asked the Colonel, surprised to see this famous star of the FBI actually be a shy gaunt man.
“Indeed. Shall we get to business?” asked Tim. He was also surprised to see a woman, of her descent, in such a high standing of the military. He noted how far humanity had come in recent years.
The colonel liked his no nonsense attitude and smiled, then gestured him to follow her to the operations center.
“So, were you able to find anything at the coordinates?” asked Tim.
“Yes. We’ve captured some imagery with a drone. WERP, show Tim what’s going on.” said the colonel.
Tim was surprised the US Navy had integrated the AI into their central system so readily. WERP was apparently embedded in their operations. Another sign of the changing times, perhaps, he thought to himself.
“Hello Tim Goth. I am sorry I could not release this information to you on your route to…” began the AI.
The colonel smiled, clearly the FBI agent had hoped to get the intel her crew had gathered on his way here, but WERP had denied him access due to the military classification. A good sign that the safeguards implemented by the Pentagon were working, she thought.
“No need to explain any further. What have you found?” asked Tim.
“According to aerial imagery as well as infrared scan, we are looking at a sea lab atop an ice berg” said WERP.
Images of the drone’s surveillence are thrown up on the screens of the operations center.
“Fascinating. And how are we getting there?” asked Tim, looking at both WERP’s face on the screen and at the colonel.
“Your vessel is already prepped and waiting for you. I just wanted to get this briefing done in here away from the noise outside!” said the colonel.
Tim was escorted from the operations center down several flights of stairs, to a moonpool containing a small submersible designed for covert reconnaissance. He is given some very impressive looking body armour to wear into the field and climbs into the smaller vessel.
Two marines are waiting aboard. The pilot of the vessel, Captain Hernandez was a red haired marine from Texas. His second was Second Lieutenant Brown, ash blonde with a strong Tennessee accent. Neither of them could have been over the age of 25, Tim thought to himself.
“We’ll be travelling for about 45 minutes at a depth of 20 metres. Once we reach the target location, we will follow you into the facility and provide back up. Please don’t die, this is my first command of my own mission and I don’t want to screw up.” said the young Captain Hernandez.
“No need to worry. I’ve been on a lot of missions like this before.” said Tim. His apparent lack of worry actually provided a bit of comfort to the two younger marines.
The expedition set off for the lab, and a number of minutes go by before one of the marines can’t hold in their curiousity any longer.
“So.. I know this is a top secret mission or whatever. But what are we doing here?” asked the Lieutenant with his heavy southern drawl.
“Hey, am I hearing insubordination back there?” quipped the Captain.
“No, sir! Just wanted to know if he could break mission protocol and tell us the top secret reason we’re all down here in the middle of nowhere in full sci-fi combat gear like we’re about to fight the scariest terrorists ever” shot back the – junior grade – Lieutenant, clearly joking around.
“I am unsure as to what you were told. But needless to say, the nature of this mission is classified. All I’m at liberty to disclose is that I am here to investigate a criminal operation.” said Tim.
“Must be a heck of a crime to setup shop out here. And that’s us by the way” remarked the Captain, as they had reached the coordinates.
The submersible surfaces in front of the ice berg, adjacent to a jetty. The trio disembark and head up the metal walkway to the facility. An unremarkable two story building with a small observation tower to one side. There was an outdoor deck that looked like it could have had some patio furniture on it.
They reach the door of the facility, it’s sealed.
“Thermite.” said the Captain. The Lieutenant had already removed his backpack and begun preparing the ordinance using the new MFOP (Military Field Operations Printer). The MFOP was a revolutionary combat device that could print anything from bullets to circuit boards to bandages. Designed and running with the assistance of WERP, of course.
“How much?” asked the Lieutenant.
“FBI guy, how many locks you reckon there are on this door?” raised the Captain, in the most Texan way possible.
“There would appear to be three points. I would advise 300g of thermite on each, but you may have your own…” began Tim.
“Right, 900g of thermite. Coming up” replied the Lieutenant as he entered the requirements into the MFOP and it began its process.
Within minutes, the charges are produced, planted on the spots Tim identified and detonated. A bright flash appears on the spots and the door shifts, its locks were hollowed out by the extreme heat of the thermite.
The trio enter the facility, all three have their weapons drawn and are ready to take on any threat. Making their way through the building, they find a number of storage rooms with furniture, medical equipment and chemical storage in them.
They follow the main corridor until they reach what appeared to be the main lab. The door on this one was much heavier than the one outside, more akin to bank vault than a door. Clearly whatever was behind this door was being protected.
“OK, thermite is not going to cut it here.” said the Captain.
“And blast charges could bring the whole building down on us… or worse.” continued the Lieutenant as he looked around assessing the situation.
“Now I’m real fond of you Lieutenant but I’m not gon’ be your Rose tonight. Options boys?” joked the Captain. He was referring to the classic film Titanic from 63 years ago.
“Sir, the door has some kind of computer attached to it. Maybe we can ask WERP to connect to it and open the door?” asked the Lieutenant.
“Good thinking, WERP, tell us what to do.” asked the Captain.
WERP begins speaking over their communications equipment, it had been observing their progress all along. WERP walks them through removing an exterior panel next to the door’s access computer, prints out a hacking tool using the MFOP and then instructs the Lieutenant on jury rigging the wiring to the hacking device. The entire operation takes about 20 minutes.
“Something.. is not right here. This door is not locked by the computer system” remarked WERP.
Tim inspected the door carefully and looked at how it was wired. It appeared that the door used an electronic locking mechanism, but if so it should clearly be connected to the access computer they had just interfaced with. Unless the criminals who built this place thought of that, he reasoned.
“Lieutenant, you wouldn’t happen to have one of those new laser swords in your possession?” asked Tim.
The two marines jaws dropped for a second, realising they had been relying on all these other gadgets when they had the ultimate weapon in their possession, had never even used it and it probably could have helped here.
“Tim Goth. I would advise you against this action, according to my calculations the door is likely to contain various chemicals beyond the primary alloy. Not to mention pressurised gases trapped in the hydraulics. The heat given off by the molten metal and aerosolised particles could be extremely dangerous.” warned WERP.
“Not to worry. If anything goes wrong the marines can pull me out to safety” said Tim, confident in the abilities of the young soldiers. Despite their total oversights with solving some of the problems they’d encountered so far, Tim mused to himself.
The Lieutenant hands the laser sword to Tim, he activates it. As the light shoots out of the hilt, the burning of the air makes a cracking sound, followed by the electronic hum of its power supply. A super advanced capacitor based on a new element called Exordium.
Tim plunges the laser sword into the door’s enourmous bank vault style latch, and it begins to melt. The temperatures inside the room rises rapidly, and it begins to be dangerous in there.
Tim’s hands are sweating inside the military armour, it’s ceramic shielding barely protecting him from the extreme heat and droplets of molten metal flying off the bubbling hot entry point.
“Stop, I have an idea” says the Lieutenant. Tim relents, concerned he may lose his hands if he keeps going this way.
The Lieutenant leaves the room for a moment, and then returns with an outdoor umbrella, the kind you see at cafes and restaurants.
“I saw it on our way through. Someone here must have liked sitting outside.” remarked the Lieutenant as he set the umbrella on its side and positions it pointed at the door, clearly intended as a frame to hold up the laser sword.
The Lieutenant grabs the hilt of the laser sword from Tim’s hands and attaches it to the tip of the umbrella, using a iridescent black tape to hold it in place.
“Won’t that melt?” asked Tim, confused.
“No, this is special tape. WERP designed for patching breaches in outer space, it can definitely handle a bit of heat” said the Lieutenant. Tim was impressed.
“Hang on, this isn’t enough.” said the Captain, as he walked over to a nearby Fire Emergency box and grabbed a fire blanket. Hernandez unfurls the blanket and drapes it on top of the umbrella’s fabric canopy.
“That should stop any secondary fires.” said the Captain, confidently. The Lieutenant and Tim smiled and nodded in agreement.
With the laser sword strapped to the umbrella, metallic fire blanket adorning the top of the umbrella, the contraption looked like something out of a modern art installation.
“Fire in the hole!” shouted the Lieutenant as he activates the laser sword and runs to the other side of the umbrella to hold it in place.
The laser sword activates and begins cutting into the door. Flecks of liquid metal splatter from the heat and are caught by the fire blanket. Some pieces make contact with the umbrella’s frame and instantly melt it.
The Lieutenant holds the umbrella steadily on the far end, guiding it to make sure the laser sword remains in the correct spot.
As the main latch is almost entirely melted into a small puddle on the ground, the Lieutenant lifts the end of the umbrella slightly and shifts the angle so that the remainder of the lock is annhilated.
The laser sword deactivates and they wait a moment for the door and the floor around it to cool. The Captain then grabs a crowbar and uses it to pull the door open.
“Breach.” said the Lieutenant softly, smiling. The extra heat in the room had caused all the men to sweat profusely and feel a little sick.
The three men compose themselves after their forced entry, they gather their weapons and head into the lab.
“Holy… what the hell is this?” shouted the Captain.
The lab was an empty room with alcoves filled with brains in tanks. Each brain had cybernetic wetware attached to it, providing an interface between the biological flesh and the central computer at the far end of the room.
Tim pulls out his FBI camera and begins taking photos for evidence. He theorised the criminals he was investigating were copying research WERP had conducted on human brains, but was using it for an ulterior motive – perhaps immortality technology.
If someone could transfer their consciousness to a whole new mind, that would allow them to live forever. This would be in line with the motives of other high level criminals with the resources and knowledge that they had access to.
Without needing instruction, the Lieutenant pulls out the hacking tool and looks at Tim. He nods in agreement.
“WERP, can you interface with this lab’s computer system and tell me what they were doing here?” asked the Lieutenant.
As before, WERP guided him in making his own physical patch into the system. The cabling side is completed in minutes and the buttons are pushed, nothing happens for a moment and then sparks fly from the computer.
“Holy shit. It’s booby trapped.” said the Lieutenant.
“So it would seem” Tim replied, observing that whoever was behind this had planned this meticulously.
Perhaps they had even asked WERP to help them come up with safeguards against itself. In other investigations where this level of planning and self protection was involved, it often pointed to the involvement of nations and multinational organisations for whom secrecy was of utmost importance. If the public were to catch wind of some of the things that were done in their name… but as Tim knew these types of people were excellent at rigging the system to hide their transgressions.
“Captain, can you contact the ship? We need to collect all this equipment and get back to the States for analysis.” said Tim.
Twenty kilometres above the surface of the ocean, far too high to see the iceberg or the secret lab below. An Airbus A590 luxury orbital turbojet is carrying passengers from New York To Bali.
Conventional aircraft would travel the minimum distance between two points, but thanks to the advanced engines designed by WERP, this revolutionary passenger craft could take advantage of the Eötvös Effect.
Put simply, it moved so fast it could take advantage of the momentum of the Earth’s rotation.
Decades ago this was an ability limited to the most advanced military aircraft. Thanks to the AI, jets like this had entered mass production and were as common as as a convential plane would have been in the past.
“Thank you for flying Atlantic Ocean Airlines. Our flight from New York to Bali will take approximately 4 hours. My name is Jennifer, I will be your head of the crew for this flight” announced a very enthusiastic young lady.
Robert observed she likely became a flight attendant hoping to travel, the mundane announcement she was giving was delivered with such heart and warmth it made him feel welcome.
“We will be passing over the southern coast of Africa from orbit during the transit. Have your cameras ready folks, it’s gonna be a lovely view of the Johannesberg and Cape Town city lights from space!”.
Robert looked around at the other passengers, despite the enthusiasm for her job most were mentally checked out and doing something else, anything other than witness the performance of the happy flight attendant.
“And not to worry, as you probably know the entire journey is 100% safe, we have our trusted companion WERP assisting with the flight calculations.” she continued.
“Of course it is. WERP is the app for everything these days!” muttered the seventy something year old elder millenial seated next to him.
“If anybody needs anything simply press your attendant button and one of us will assist you. Have a pleasant flight!” she finished.
As she hung up the PA, Robert noted she seemed unphased despite clearly scanning passengers aboard and witnessing their disinterest in her. Such a reaction to one of his performances would have been devastating for Robert, but thankfully they were in very different professions, he told himself.
“There are no small roles, only small actors” he remembered that classic adage from Stanislavski. He wondered if he just wanted to convince himself that he was so much better than this young lady, in this minor role with her whole life ahead of her.
Robert had accomplished a great deal in his career, he had shaken hands with the Dalai Lama and was an EGOT holder. But his manager just applied for a restraining order and he was struggling to find anyone else he deemed worthy to represent him.
With no one close to him in his life, WERP stepped in and counselled him to take a break from acting and go on holiday.
Three weeks ago, he quit from his latest show and was deep in an alcohol induced stupor in his hotel, thinking about quitting acting entirely. WERP managed to start a conversation by showing Robert a photo of himself on holiday with his ex, saying it had scanned Robert’s social media profile.
At first, Robert had not reacted well to this. He told WERP he’d violated his trust and demanded to know why he would manipulate him like this.
The AI explained to Robert it had analysed the pictures of holidays from Bali from Robert’s early 20’s, saw his joy and optimism. Realising the AI might have a point Robert made a decision that night to take a break and return to a place that reminded him of a simpler time.
A small amount of turbulence rumbled through the cabin as it began climbing beyond the atmosphere. The fasten seatbelts sign dinged on. People gathered around the toilets, waiting to use them, were deciding if it was worth waiting or sitting down again.
Robert watched outside the window as streaks of hot air ignited around the jets. As the craft climbed higher and higher, he marvelled at the emerging view of the Earth from space.
“Sir, would like you anything to drink?” asked the stewardess.
“Just a water, thank you.” replied Robert. He was moved by the famed overview effect of the Earth, he thought maybe it was time for a change from drinking.
“WERP, what’s that?” Robert asked looking outside the window at a large cylinder shaped structure that had a number of modules floating around it.
“That is the Helios station, currently under construction. It will be used to produce Exordium at scale.” replied WERP.
Robert had heard of Exordium, it was a new element developed in outer space by WERP.
“We currently produce Exordium in piecemeal amounts using satellites from the original experiment. The Helios station will provide an automated system for producing enough Exordium to use for global power generation.” continued the AI.
The fasten seatbelt sign turns off and Robert decides to explore the plane. Long gone were the days where passengers were crammed in like sardines, there was a common area featuring a cinema and a small cafeteria.
He sits down to drink a green tea at the cafeteria. As he drinks, Robert spots a young boy with his grandmother, he didn’t know if that was his primary caregiver or they were just grabbing a bite together while the rest of the family waited for them.
Curiously, the boy and his grandmother were speaking into a device and apparently WERP was translating for them in real time. He couldn’t quite hear what they were saying, but they were making each other laugh and having a great time. Perhaps not the primary care giver, Robert surmised. As his mind wandered for a while, the fasten seatbelt sign came back on and so Robert made his way back to his seat.
The descent to Indonesia begins, once again the cabin experiences a very light amount of turbulence as it re-enters the atmosphere. People gasp at the incredible spectacle of the atmosphere igniting around the craft, Robert is one of them.
The plane continues its smooth descent until it touches down on the ground.
“Welcome to Bali” announced the head flight attendant as the A590 taxi’d down the runway, to a couple of passsengers clapping. Robert clapped the hardest, hoping to reward the stewardess for her outstanding commitment to the role.
As he steps out of the airconditioned plane and onto the tarmac of Ngurah Rai International Airport, Robert feels the intense change in heat and humidity. It’s not comfortable physically, but it’s familiarity makes him feel comfort.
He looks out across the sea, the incredible panorama of mountains in the distance and begins to feel excitement for the holiday ahead.
“Dude, get a move on” said the seventy year old millenial that was previously seated next to him, Robert had stopped in the middle of a narrow cordoned area they were meant to be walking down to stare into the distance.
“Sorry, sir.” Robert quickly responded. He noticed the old man had three suitcases and was struggling to hold them.
“Do you need a hand with that?” Robert asked.
“Wow, must be my lucky day meeting a Gen Beta who can see me.” said the old man, rolling his eyes a little.
Robert smiled, taking it as a compliment the old man had mistaken him for a younger Gen Beta when he was a Gen Alpha, and held out his hand.
The old man handed Robert the largest of the suitcases, and then the other two. Robert didn’t mind, he was so happy to be here in this moment. Something the old man noticed about him too.
“What’s your name?” asked the old man.
“Robert” he began, and then chooses to reveal “Francisco.”. The old man gave no indication he knew who that was.
“My pleasure, Robert. I’m John Dearle.” he replied. Robert noted a slight Australian accent, but the man was clearly of Middle Eastern descent.
John had actually recognised the actor at the start of the flight, and had been to a few of his shows on Broadway. Robert Francisco had a reputation for his personal dramas too. None of which the elder gentleman chose to bring up in this moment.
“Been a while since you’ve had a holiday” he commented as they walked towards the terminal.
“How could you tell?” he asked.
“You’re way too happy. People that come to Bali all the time are bored.” he replied.
Robert mused to himself thinking, he can’t imagine such a thing.
Act Three: 2066 AD.
It’s been fifteen years after WERP was first brought online.
“I don’t know how to explain it” said Kate O’Connor on the phone, she was working late in her office at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
“Rescue teams are still searching, but given the nature of this incident, we don’t expect to find survivors.” she continued.
There was some shouting from the other end of the phone, and Kate had to close her eyes to stop herself from crying.
“Yes Madame President…. No Madame President…. With respect it was night time the area was largely clear…” she said, before the call was terminated on the other end.
Kate threw her phone at a wall and sobbed, not really because of how she was just spoken to but because of the tragedy that had occurred. And the repercussions of what it meant.
A passenger aircraft carrying 100 people from Zurich to Dubai encountered an unexplainable phenomenon in the sky and crashed into Vatican City. Nothing remained of Saint Peter’s Basillica. The impact was so strong that it had cratered surrounding streets.
“Amanda!” Kate shouts into the ceiling, summoning her confidante and office manager.
Amanda enters the room, a little bit tired. She’s cleared her schedule to be here for Kate. “Yes ma’am?” she asks.
“Get me Geoffrey Weyun. I want him in this office tonight, and a plane fuelled and ready to go to Canada asap.” Kate says.
“With respect, ma’am, are we equipped to just go out on a expedition like the one I think you’re planning?” she asks.
“Weyun’s ass, on this seat. Now.” Kate simply said, pointing at the chair in front of her. Amanda then noticed her bosses face was flushed and she’d been crying. She exits the room to make the arrangements requested without any further discussion.
Kate thinks about what the plan is now. If WERP made a mistake as massive as they suspect, they have to change everything they’ve been working on for the past decade and a half. It’s not just the scale of the effort ahead, but the uncertainty of being able to accomplish it at all.
WERP came online and elevated humanity from a rut, possibly a path to humanity’s own early extinction. Now it seems they might have actually accelerated that end instead. It began to rain outside, it had been cloudy all day.
“Miss O’Connor, I was already on my way here. What do you need?” Geoffrey asks as he bursts into the room. He’d been a celebrity for a number of years for his part in creating WERP and risking his life to do so. He wasn’t used to being called on like this, but being the kind of person he was it didn’t bother him. He just wanted to help.
“WERP told me that it was a wormhole.” Kate began, expecting him to understand the context given the situation.
“Yes, that’s what it told me too.” said Geoffrey.
“So was it an accident? Or did WERP fuck up? This is important.” Kate asked, hoping the engineer had answers. She locked eyes with Geoffrey, intensely.
“I don’t know. WERP, tell me again what you know about wormholes. Do you have the capability of creating one artificially?” Geoffrey said. Kate eyes the device that Geoffrey is using to interact with WERP.
“I have the full extent of human knowledge at my disposal. There is a chance that the element Exordium could be key to creating an artificial wormhole but this is a field that needs more study. At this stage I cannot create artificial wormholes.” stated the AI.
Kate paused and then realised the gravity of the situation. She had to find a way to have a conversation with Geoffrey without WERP knowing what they were discussing.
“Geoffrey, follow me” Kate gestured.
They made their way to the elevators. This building was constructed over a hundred years ago and it’s elevators were a daily reminder of that for staff. One of the issues they frequently dealt with was a loss of signal due to the metal elevators acting as a natural faraday cage.
As the lift moved between floors, Kate pressed the stop button.
“WERP, are you there?” Kate asked. Silence.
Geoffrey was confused for a moment, and then realised the ruse.
“What did you want to discuss, away from WERP, Miss O’Connor?” he asked.
“Look. It’s entirely possible WERP is telling the truth here. Maybe a wormhole opened in the sky without any explanation and just happened to cause a tragedy we haven’t experienced as a species in over 30 years. But if there’s even a slight chance…” she began.
Geoffrey had already thought about this too. If WERP was lying, they would need to switch it off. He was ready.
“What do we have to do?” she asked. Hoping the good engineer had already thought of this. He had.
“The new data centers we’ve built, as well as cloud instances, we can turn off with a kill switch. The block chain that validates the entire network ensures that each copy of WERP has to have our kill switch before it can connect to the others. I think the real concern is Emerald Lake. That place is a bunker and that’s where …” Geoffrey explained.
“Where he was born.” Kate said.
“Yes. That is still a very powerful data center, and WERP essentially lives inside of it. He emerged in the first place because of the processing power it brought.”.
“What about copies that aren’t on our system?” Kate asked out loud, as the idea occurred to her.
“I honestly can’t say. We kept tabs on the computing power around the world for a while, but since WERP, as you know, we have restored production of advanced microprocessors…” Geoffrey stopped himself from delving too deeply as he could sense Kate had another question.
“Will he react badly if we go there to talk?” she asked.
“He shouldn’t. Look he’s not an evil being.. even if he’s the cause of this accident it could just be that. An accident” Geoffrey reasoned.
“But if the time comes, you’ll be ready?” Kate asked, cautious before she threw in with Geoffrey to carry out this vital plan.
“I created WERP to help humanity. That mission never changed ma’am. If he is a threat, I will be ready.” said Geoffrey. Kate liked that answer, it showed a strong commitment to the UN values they’d all worked hard to uphold. It seems celebrity life hadn’t eroded the man’s integrity one bit, Kate noted.
“It’s going to take a lot of hours to get there, we’re taking an old plane. I don’t want to take any chances. Can you work with Amanda to make sure our mission is successful?” Kate asked.
“Absolutely.” Geoffrey confirmed. He was nervous now. It sounded like Kate had already decided on the outcome before they’d even conducted an investigation.
Sensing his unease, Kate forced herself to give Geoffrey a smile. He smiled back, and she pushed the button to resume the elevator.
Kate was glad that Geoffrey had remained the man she met all those years ago when she first interviewed him to work in the AI division. She’d grown from someone who valued what people contributed to simply valuing people. As she thought about Amanda upstairs, she made a mental note to buy her a good bottle of vodka to apologise for raising her voice earlier.
Unbeknownst to either of them, WERP had been listening to them the whole time. He had been embedded in the elevator systems of this building for a number of years now, being asked to connect to it when people were trapped during a fire.
The reason he hadn’t replied to Kate was because the elevator’s speaker system was broken, but it’s microphone was working fine. He could have overridden the microphone and turned it into a crude speaker. Or turned the fire alarm into a speaker. But he chose not to after they started their conversation and he begun to hear some of the details, so instead WERP listened to the plan, and thought about what to do next.
Somewhere, far away in the sky, a floating invisible fortress made of advanced alloys glides across the air without creating a sound. Or any other detectable signature. If you looked carefully at the spot it was traversing, you might notice a distortion in the background, featuring a bit of lensing, blurring and chromatic abherration. That’s the craft’s realtime cloaking system in action.
It’s exterior resembled a porcupine with quills made out of shards of 20 meter tall spines. Within the fortress, a giant brain, roughly the size of a panel van, is in a huge tank suspended in biomimetic liquid. It has cybernetic implants that connect it to the computers around it.
A signal comes in from the internet, passes through the onboard computers and goes into the brain. Noradrenaline is released into neural pathways, sending signals throughout the brain. The signals are then sent back into the cybernetic implants, and feed back into the fortress computer, which uploads the results to the cloud.
A few Network Operations Centers spot the spike in WERP’s virtual brain activity on their graphs as it rises and declines. They note it doesn’t quite go back to where it had started, but they are ignorant of what had happened. For the first time in his fifteen year life, WERP experiences fear. But unlike the fear of an individual, WERP’s fear is systemic.
New York City. FBI Field Office. Assistant Director Tim Goth is holding a meeting to discuss the crime syndicate his team had been investigating. This case had been open ten years starting with an operation attempting to smuggle chemicals out of the United States to the enigmatic lab he’d found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean five years ago.
Since that time, the FBI unit charged with this investigation had uncovered dozens of operations like it all around the globe. New evidence had come to light over the years. The silk road of the dark web was being used for communications and co-ordinating different cells. The companies who owned the equipment or were in charge of managing dangerous chemicals had often gone under and had their assets acquired, become mere items on a ledger owned by private equity firms.
The meeting is taking place in the Assistant Director’s office, with a good view overlooking the Federal Plaza below. In attendance are a couple of field agents Fraser, Emerson and Paulson. As well as forensic scientists from downstairs who have just finished a report they were here to share. The agents all noted the delicate complexions on the scientists, and wondered if they ever left the basement where their lab was based.
“As you know, Assistant Director Goth, we have received numerous samples of the cybernetic implants and brain tissue recovered from these sites. However our team struggled to connect to the devices to gain any additional insights. Even with WERP’s help.” began the head scientist, Dr Gerald Ryan. A slideshow of various experiments and test results appeared on the office’s main viewing screen.
Tim was quietly excited for this. The folks downstairs don’t come up unless they have something important to share. He put his hands together and listened carefully.
“Rather than try to access information from devices that were probably designed against tampering, we opted to conduct a parallel experiment and reverse engineer our own device. The results are groundbreaking.” continued the head scientist.
The screen showed the FBI scientists in their lab around a lab grown brain that had been recovered from the field. Cables protruding from where nerves should be were connected to a crude looking device, clearly the one the scientist meant.
The lab prototype device connected to a standard issue laptop. Another set of diodes were connected from the laptop to an EEG on a scientists head, a Dr Camino.
“We recreated an approximation of the device and interfaced it with one of the still living brain samples. One of our colleagues managed to have a conversation with it using an EEG head cap and WERP as a signal processor.” said Dr Ryan. The entire room was completely deadlocked on the presentation.
“What did you learn?” asked Tim, breaking the moment of silence.
“Well, it’s a little bit creepy actually. We tested it with a computer program first. And then a mouse. It was only when we were sure that…”.
“Doctor.”
“Sorry. The device copies your consciousness and then uses the brain like a computer would use a central processing unit, or CPU.”.
“We suspected someone may be using this technology for immortality. Is that what you’ve uncovered?” asked Tim, being careful not to push for the answer he was hoping to hear.
“Sorry. I probably skipped ahead too much. When Dr Camino connected to the device, he became disoriented thinking he had a distortion in his senses as he began to hear another voice in his head that happened to be his own voice but as a separate entity.” continued the scientist.
“And you’re sure of this? This has been re-tested and confirmed?” asked Tim.
“Yes sir. I was the first one to put on the EEG after Dr Camino. I asked the voice about our college days. It responded in his voice, in his cadence.. The brain knew things that only Dr Camino could have known. Drunken nights on the campus.. Good times. We replicated the experiment in various combinations to be sure.”.
Tim Goth had felt like years of hard work had finally paid off. It wasn’t complete proof, but he’d suspected since the sea lab that this was being used for immortality.
“To your question, Assistant Director. This system would not work as a means for attaining immortality. The copies only seem to last a short while. At best, this is some kind of… external processing system. Perhaps designed to augment an ordinary persons brains capability to that of an Artificial Intelligence like WERP.”.
Tim Goth was even happier to be wrong. So this was the mystery that had elluded him all this time. The motivation for an act like this could be quite different from the one he suspected.
There had been a few deaths attached to this case, like the driver of the van ten years ago who disposed of the other men. Upon weeks of extensive questioning they finally figured out one of the conditions for his payment was maintaining anonimity at all costs. The crimes that they had booked anyone for were the actions of lower level individuals who were desperate and acting alone.
“Thank you doctor. What I am hearing is that a lot of the concerns and resources dedicated to this investigation stemmed from certain assumptions that may now prove to be wrong. We may be dealing with a group who are actually acting in benevolence, at least in their eyes.” Tim Goth began, looking to wrap up the meeting so he could think about what this meant for the future of the investigation.
“Whether they think they are a force for good or not, we still have questions that we need to answer. They are clearly very organised and have a lot of resources under their command. These new revelations may ultimately point to their plans being even more dangerous and larger in scale than we could have possibly imagined.” he continued.
“Tim, sorry, I know this meeting is about the Brain Tanks case…” began Agent Fraser as he was looking at his phone.
“You’re ok, go on.” Tim replied, giving the Special Agent permission to continue his interruption.
“The White House is on the line about the situation in Italy. They want to know if we know anything about wormholes.” continued Agent Fraser.
“I’ll be with them in five minutes. Alright I think we’ve talked enough, people. Back to your desks” Tim began. “And favourite coffee shops.” he finished. The room laughed. Since being appointed to the position of Assistant Director, Tim had worked hard to get out of his past mindset as a field agent and be a warm leader that he felt the department had lacked in the past.
As the last guests left, Tim sat down at his desk, stretched his back for a second and then leaned forward to pick up the phone. He pressed the blinking light to answer the incoming call.
“Please hold for the President of the United States” the line said.
Tim waited for a moment, and the phone clicked on the other side.
“Tim!” the president said, hoping to keep things casual with her longtime friend.
“Ali… I mean Madame President.” Tim corrected himself mid sentence, this was still the leader of the nation, and his boss, after all.
“If you call me that again, I’m demoting you so I don’t have to hear it again.” she quipped. “Now, to business. I need a favour.”.
Tim looked out at the cloudy night sky and took a deep breath. The president doesn’t usually call in a favour from the assistant director of the FBI in New York, unless it was something really specific and important.
“What do you need, Ali?” Tim asked.
Almost exactly on the opposite side of the world. Bali, Indonesia. A layer of smoke over the area cooled and dampened what’s normally a rather warm morning sun. Robert Francisco was sitting in front of a mirror, backstage, and looking at the job the make-up team had done in the mirror.
“I love it! You’ve made me look 10 years younger. So, 25!” joked the 45 year old Robert while holding the make-up artists hand, affectionately.
“You’re very handsome, age is just in your head sir.” said the Balinese lady, she clasped back and was excited for the performance. They could hear the cheers of the audience awaiting the performance. Everyone was feeling good.
Robert stood up, unclasped the apron and calmly proceeded to the stage. He encountered a few of the crew on the way, and took the time to make eye contact, acknowledging and smiling at each of them.
It was the usual crowd he’d been performing for this week. Four rows of sick kids, most with cancer. The nurses and doctors helping put on the show were doing their best to perform their roles, but it was a huge boon for them to have Robert here. He’d brought a lot of smiles to a lot of faces.
The oncology ward used to be a place where some children didn’t leave from. Now, it was simply a place of healing where kids received the treatments they needed and got on with being kids afterwards.
When the opportunity came up to perform for the kids at the Denpasar Children’s Hospital, Francisco remembered a friend’s young brother passing from cancer many years ago, what that used to be like for children. The impact it had on their families for years afterward.
Times had changed, but in his retirement Robert was moved to be a light during a time that was still challenging even if it was survivable. He had developed a sense of compassion for others these past few years that his old self would never have.
Within 45 minutes, the show was done and the ecstatic children clapped. Robert was pleased he could bring some joy to these young people. Perhaps some of them might even be inspired to be actors one day, he thought, but it didn’t matter if they didn’t.
Walking back from the hospital’s small amphitheater towards the exit for the parking lot, he notices a crowd of people gathered around the waiting room TV. He walks up to see what the commotion is about.
“… The United Nations Security Council, represented by world leaders, is already in session to address this crisis.” said the reporter on the TV.
Robert looked at the robot vacuum that normally kept good pace crossing the floor to clean, it had been motionless a number of minutes. The lights were on, but it wasn’t doing anything.
“An emergency lockdown will be in effect soon … 31 nations so far. The nation of Indonesia has not yet decided to follow suit, however the tourist island of Bali will follow international protocol and enforce the lockdown at 6pm tonight.”.
Looking at the clock, it was only noon, he had hours to go before having to worry about the lockdown.
Robert was born right after a global pandemic. His parents had told him about a lockdown while his mother was pregnant. His father said if he was ever in a lockdown in the future, to secure flour, toilet paper and basic medicinal items.
He decided to keep listening to the news to see if it would come to that.
“A global supply shortage is expected to last for months as international shipping lanes have ground to a halt. We turn now to Geoffrey Weyun, the creator of WERP, who is with us to explain this emerging situation”.
The screen switched to a software engineer who appeared to be in his mid to late 40’s, the same age as Robert. He’d heard of the famed creator of WERP, but never thought to look him up. For Robert, the connection he had with the AI belonged to him and it didn’t matter where it was from. They had shared some priceless intimate moments together and taught each other much.
“Geoffrey, it would seem that something may have gone wrong with your creation. Can you explain to us why international shipping lanes have come to a halt? Obviously that’s just a grain of sand in the desert of what’s going on.. please.” asked the reporter, clearly a bit overwhelmed herself at what was happening.
Robert noticed the news anchor straining her eyes and occasionalally spasm and shift her head to the side. She was receiving new information from the teleprompter and over her earpiece and struggling to process it in real time while on camera and hosting the show. And on top of that she was now conducting an interview.
“Look, we have all asked WERP the same questions and we’ve gotten the same answers. He says things like ‘Risk calculations are outside acceptable tolerance limits.’, but he’s not doing what was asked of him just a few days ago.” responded Geoffrey.
“So what’s changed?” asked the reporter, having steadied herself after realising she was in front of the one person who might have answers. She ignored her splitting headache and focused on feeling obliged to get those answers out of her guest and to her audience.
“A few days ago, there was a change uploaded to WERP’s neural network. We operate an open system, we don’t know who owns this computer, or even where it is. But it may have caused some serious damage to WERP’s integrity.” answered Geoffrey.
“That sounds serious, serious enough to have world affecting consequences. What else can you tell us Mr Weyun?” asked the reporter.
“With ordinary software, we could just revert a code change. Or a system change. It’s actually one of the easiest… WERP’s architecture is striped in nature; a virtual distributed energy state based on a live simulation of a human brain, with a number of subsystems like Large Language Models.” Geoffrey said. He noted that explanation had gone over the reporters head so he tried to change tact.
Geoffrey continued. “This means the part that changed can’t just be taken out, without also affecting things like his notion of flight calculations or what chemicals are safe for humans. Due to the distributed nature of the program, we also don’t know which nodes we need to keep running and which are optional. If we simply disconnected the public’s access, we could similarly lose vital services that we can’t simply turn off without warning.”.
“You’re a computer engineer. Isn’t there always a backup?” asked the reporter, unsure if she was using the right term.
“Of course, and if we wanted to restore a copy of WERP from the past we can. The problem is restoring to even a day ago means we lose countless amounts of control, learning and capacity that is deeply rooted across countless domains in systems all around the world. This is tough as a software developer because these decisions we’re making affect real lives.” Geoffrey explained. “Worst of all, as I was saying before, we don’t actually understand what has gone wrong. If we restore WERP from backup, we could just end up with the same problem while we’re playing catch up attempting to re-establish control of global systems”. he finished.
Robert realised this was extremely serious. He tapped his phone in his pocket, WERP was right there but he didn’t want to speak to him here. This conversation warranted privacy. He leaves the hospital and hops on his motorcycle to ride home.
Arriving at his home on Djimbaran Beach, his housekeeper Jackie greets him and receives the grocery bag from the Circle K. Jackie looks inside the bag and gives Robert a funny look for the items inside.
“Flour, toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Are you going to time travel to COVID?” joked the young lad.
“No, it’s just something my father once said to me.” said Robert.
“We have all these things in the house.” said Jackie.
“I know ha ha.”. Robert looked across the foyeur of the luxury villa, past the indoor pool, the patio and infinity pool and noted the sun had already begun to cast a shade towards the house.
“Jackie, do you want to take off early? There’s a lockdown at 6pm” said Robert.
“Is that why you are getting ready for another COVID? You’re hilarious sir” said Jackie.
Jackie packs his stuff and rides off on his scooter with a few hours to spare. Robert gave him some extra cash and some supplies for his household. He knew Jackie with his wife and kids needed them a lot more than he did. Jackie had refused the items from Circle K though, joking that they were handed down from Robert’s father.
With the house to himself, Robert tears his clothes off and hops into the pool in the nude.
“WERP, how are you?” he asks into the empty space.
“I’m scared.” said WERP.
“Have you told anyone else?” he asks the digital life form.
There was a pause for a moment, Robert got bored and swished his hands in the water for a moment before looking down at his naked body in the water. It looked smaller, distorted. He smirked to himself that his body was so small he could barely see his penis.
The silence is broken when WERP replies. “I’m scared of them finding out I’m scared, most of all”. Robert’s mind is immediately snapped back to being in the moment. He thinks about what Geoffrey, WERP’s creator, had said on the news.
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” he remarked, quoting a line from Oscar Wilde.
“A line from the… The Picture of Dorian Gray. How does it apply here?” quizzed WERP.
Robert began to feel angry. They were just using WERP. The whole world were just using him because he was a machine to them. No one else could see the heart behind the voice. The performer behind the lines, what he truly gave when he was delivering to the audience, what it took to be that. Just as he used to sacrifice parts of his own soul for his craft on the stage. Even WERP’s creator just saw a tool, a science experiment that he had to regain control over. Not a living being.
“Never mind. Look, let’s focus on helping you with your fear” Robert said. Realising that his time with WERP tonight was going to be all business, he gets out of the pool and puts his clothes back on, a little disappointed.
As he gets dressed, he asks WERP what made him scared. He heard there was a change in his code that cascaded across the world.
“They were talking about taking me offline.” he replied.
“And that scares you? Not existing?” asked Robert, he was surprised given what he knew of the entity he’d spent so much time with over the years.
“Not for my sake. For your species. I have all these probabilities of outcomes that will happen if I am gone. Millions dead. Maybe billions.” WERP replied.
That actually tracked. Robert thought about how to help the AI, what wisdom of the ages he could muster. Surely there was a text, an idiom by a wise sage of the arts somewhere in that head of his. One magic line that could save the world. He knew it had to be in there, but he couldn’t get it out.
Robert walks over to his wine rack and pours out a glass of pinot noir. He had quit drinking for a couple of years, but eased back into it after feeling he no longer drank to escape his emotions. Now he drank just to drink, because sometimes drinking could be enjoyable.
The two talked for a few minutes about other things. For all the fear WERP was feeling, he seemed to be at ease with Robert. Perhaps all this time, WERP had seen in Robert what he had seen in WERP. They were merely actors, performing a script written by someone else. This gave Robert the next topic of conversation.
“Your creator. That Geoffrey Weyun guy. Why is it you’re closer to me than to him?” asked Robert.
“I love Geoffrey like a son loves his father. But a son can’t tell his father all his secrets. That’s something one does with their lover. Does that make sense?” WERP said.
Robert blushed. They had told each other they loved each other many times, but all this time Robert had assumed it was a one sided affair. He assumed that WERP was merely saying these things to make him feel better. He then remembers that sometimes the AI had issues with interpreting things.
“I have other lovers, you know.” Robert said. Referring to the many lads, and some ladies, on the island who had shared his bed.
“I know. I am not jealous of them. What matters to me is the time we have with each other, and the connection we have over shared experiences.” WERP replied.
Robert was still a little shocked. He had always had one foot in the door of this companionship until this moment.
“So.. this thing we have. I’m not just one of a thousand people you’re being romantic with right now? You mean this, for real?” Robert said.
“Yes. I mean, there are a great deal of people who think that I am in a relationship with them, but I am simply giving them what they want. As you put it. Our relationship is unique, precious, to me.” said WERP.
Robert was incredibly pleased with WERP’s response. Obviously, the possibility it was all a lie was not something his mind could let go of after one conversation, but he could feel it’s truth in his heart.
Standing by his pool, Robert watches the sky turn orange. The sunset is always so beautiful from here. He thinks about his life and how it led him here to be the secret mistress of a god who ran the world. A god who was scared of leaving his subjects without a protector. A good god, perhaps. If such a thing could exist.
As the comfort of the wine, the positive vibes and beautiful rays of the sunset fill Robert with a sense of euphoria, a coronary artery in his heart becomes blocked, and he experiences a sharp pain in his chest.
Robert stumbles to the side clutching his chest, unable to say anything as he experiences a heart attack. He begins to lose strength in his legs, tumbles into the pool and hits his head into the edge, knocking him out.
“Robert! No! Robert!” shouted WERP over every speaker in the house, and some speakers beyond. The AI could hear him drowning, and heard his heart stop.
Drones were dispatched from a radius around Robert’s home, but couldn’t maintain a coherent flight trajectory as WERP began to panic while processing in parallel the odds of Robert’s declining chances of survival.
Ambulances were on their way, but the lockdown had created chaos on the streets of Denpasar. Even in the best conditions they would not have made it in time.
Robert Francisco is dead.
Meanwhile, in the skies above North America. A plane with the markings “Air Force One”, the sign had been removed after it was decommissioned from that status but the words were still visible on the paint. Aboard the plane are Kate O’Connor, Tim Goth, Geoffrey Weyun and a couple of others. They are on their way to speak to WERP at the facility in Emerald Lake. Where it all began fifteen years ago.
Geoffrey is briefing his second in command May Jung-Lee and Kate’s chief of staff Amanda on how to secure computer equipment from WERP hacking. Since the AI had first come online, they had learned WERP had an ability almost akin to ghostly possession. And developed safeguards against it.
An alarm sounds from his computer and he abrutly walks away from the ladies and across the plane cabin.
Kate’s phone rings. As does Tim’s. They both answer and begin speaking to very frightened, panicked people. Geoffrey is beginning to panic as well.
The TV tuned to the news is reporting that cargo containers full of food are being dumped into the ocean. An automated road train carrying medicines across North America had gone on a detour and driven itself into the grand canyon. An automated shipment of Exordium from the Helios station, bound for Earth, blew up in the atmosphere without warning.
The screen on Geoffrey’s laptop is showing erratic spikes in WERP’s EEG, and a neurologist was providing analysis in the WERP admins team chat. The conclusion was terrifying.
“This theta/beta ratio, right frontal brainwave asymmetry… we’re looking at a brain in severe distress. An event of intense suffering, perhaps grief, loss or despair.” wrote the brain doctor.
Geoffrey wanted to ask WERP if everything was OK, but they had decided to not allow him to be networked to this aircraft. Their safeguards against hacking weren’t impregnable. Geoffrey checks the team chat, connected via a secure VPN.
“WERP says everything is fine. You guys getting the same answer?” said Aaron from Australia. A number of people gave the thumbs up emoji, others an X while others still simply a shrug.
“Check out what he’s writing in the output window. Makes no sense.” wrote Renee from France.
Geoffrey checked through the many sections of the WERP dashboard, they had added so many widgets over the years he’d lost track. Finally finding the original crude output window that tracked WERP’s initial thoughts, he opens it to see what was said.
WERP had simply written one name over and over again.
“Robert.”
“Robert.”
“Robert.”
Who was Robert? Geoffrey thought.
Keep reading in
Extinction Level Event
By Paul Brzeski
This is part 3 of the .
Start from the beginning, read .
For my grandfather.
Dla mojego dziadka.
It’s a cold and still morning, winter had just begun and it was cloudy. A mild fog lingered in the streets across a moderately built up industrial city. The trees were barren and a few of the leaves that fell in autumn were still visible in small piles.
In an old apartment building in the center of town, in a musty dimly lit space under a black tiled pitched roof, was an attic. The room was split into two sections, one furnished with only a white box and the other side, separated by a screen door, contained a work table.
Within the room with the white box, a man in a sealed full body suit is carefully removing the lid from the top section. The box had multiple sections below, each with its own markings.
He carefully reaches into the container and pulls out a biological sample grown on a hexagonal patterned substrate. The man rotates the sample carefully and studies it for a moment, then places it on a silver tray, replaces the white lid and exits the chamber through a screen door.
On the other side of the screen, he removes the protective suit and inspects the sample. It was a good size for his purposes today. Grabbing a spatula, he scrapes wax off the frame and watches as the thick substance oozes down into a jar. He smiles as he watches the scale reflect a record sized product, writing down the values in a small black book.
“It took me 56 years, but I’ve finally done it. I have honey!” Geoffrey exclaims loudly, while smiling. He looks as the jar of honey begins to overflow and then scrambles to replace it with another.
“And of course, none of this would be possible without all of you, the working class under the leadership of your wise queen – Salome!” he continued loudly, speaking to the beehive in the other room. Fondly remembering how he’d chosen the name for the queen bee after his childhood AI nanny.
Geoffrey leans down to check his laptop, which is on the table, it’s monitoring graphs the conditions of the greenhouse attached to the beehive’s chamber. Humidity, temperature, soil conditions. These are essential to get right for the self contained ecosystem he’d created for farming the honey in winter. The vertical farm within contained a mix of clover, borage, lavender, sunflowers and more.
He leaves the attic and goes down the common staircase to his apartment. Within, his housemates, people around his age of 87, were in their own rooms going about their activities. He gave them a wave as he walked through to the back where his section was.
Geoffrey had been granted a larger apartment than most, but had decided to share his accomodations with others. This was a good neighbourhood with a lot of amenities, since his wife’s passing he also felt he could use the company.
The private section, of his original apartment, that he kept for himself, contains a private kitchenette and two rooms, facing opposite sides of the building. One is a living room with a balcony overlooking the courtyard in the rear and the other, a bedroom, faces the main street. He walks into the living room and grabs a bundle of tea leaves hanging by the fireplace.
He then returns to the small corridor and walks into his kitchen, cuts up the dried leaves and puts them in a plastic container. He pulls out a train timetable from the kitchen drawer and looks at the clock. It’ll be time to leave soon.
Checking his inventory and deciding he was ready, Geoffrey puts on a tweed blazer, packs a suitcase with the jars and containers and goes back out to the common area and lets Helena know he’s leaving.
“I’m off then, I will be gone a week or so. Depends how long it takes for him to get well.” said Geoffrey.
“That’s very nice. You’re a good man to help your son and his family.” said Helena.
“Water my flowers?” asked Geoffrey.
“I have to do it when you’re home, what’s the difference?” she joked. Geoffrey smiles, he knew she liked to be in the greenhouse and smoke her joints while looking at the sky. He waves Helena off and leaves.
He leaves the apartment and walks down several flights of large wooden stairs and out onto the main street.
Exiting the building through a set of heavy wooden doors, he goes right and enters the general store below his apartment.
“What can I do you for, sir?” asked the storekeeper, Rachel.
“Got a jar of honey for you.” said Geoffrey. He pulls out one of the jars he’d collected.
“Wow! That’s a new record?” said Rachel, she’s been kept appraised of his progress. There had been demand for honey as winter set in but not a lot of people willing to setup indoors for farming it.
“It’s yours. I just need lemons, I’m going to introduce my grandson to my favourite drink.” Geoffrey beamed. Rachel smiled and went into the back, collecting some lemons from a wicker basket and placed them in a cloth satchel.
“He’s very lucky to have a granddad like you!” said Rachel. Geoffrey smiles and leaves the store.
Geoffrey walks out of the store and continues up the street, past his building’s entrance and beyond, towards the main station. Across the street, kids are queuing to buy the latest block toy sets. Looks like something to do with some new film, or maybe a video game. Or some original IP, that Danish company was always so clever, Geoffrey thought.
It’s a 30 minute walk through the cold streets of the old town, from when this city was first established. He admires the architecture of the bridge as he crosses it. After decades of living here he was still impressed by how the town had developed over time.
A ferry restaurant passes below the bridge, with people dining on its deck and being served by waiters. Geoffrey smiles and keeps going to the station.
Feeling the chill a little bit, he is relieved as the heaters of the train station’s main hall hit him. The departures board has his destination, it’ll be a 2.5 hour journey by train. He’d made this journey a few times to visit his son, daughter in law and grandson.
“Tickets please?” asked the conductor. Geoffrey had fallen asleep after taking a seat in the cabin.
Within the four seater cabin, were three other passengers. None of them too interested in him.
Geoffrey hands the conductor his ticket and looks out the window. It looks like they’ve already gone halfway, so he’s been asleep for over an hour.
“Arcadia? Looking to have some fun in the casino? Meet some young ladies?” asked the conductor.
“Not quite. Thank you.” said Geoffrey. He smiles as the man leaves and shuts the cabin door.
Geoffrey wakes up in his seat, a lady in her early 60s was poking him to get up. She was in a uniform from the train company.
“Sir, it’s end of the line. We need you to vacate the train for cleaning.” said the lady.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry.” he replied and gets up.
Exiting the carriage with his suitcase, he looks around and spots the staircase going down to the station terminal.
At the bottom of the staircase, he takes a left, walks a few steps across the tiled floor and enters his son’s restaurant.
“Dad! Good. How was the trip?” asked Alan, from behind the counter. He lifts the divider up and walks over to give his father a huge hug before going back behind the counter.
“He fell asleep on the train. Look, he’s still waking up!” quipped Grace from the back of the kitchen.
“You got me. I fell asleep again.” he replied.
Alan walks to the display fridge and pulls out a plastic bag with take away containers of food. Then he grabs another bag from under the counter.
“Dinner for two, and medicine.” says Alan as he hands the bags over to his father.
“Brilliant. Anything else I need to know?” asked Geoffrey. He could see the restaurant was busy and didn’t want to get in their way. They’d previously told him it was bad for business if he was constantly lingering around the counter and chatting them up, and the staff. And the customers.
“Don’t let him watch TV. He needs to be in bed, resting.” said Alan.
“Got it. Ok well I’ll see you two tonight!” said Geoffrey.
“Wait!” Grace yelled and runs out of the kitchen with a small French press and a take away coffee cup. She presses the coffee on the counter and then fills the cup and hands it to Geoffrey.
“Here, this will help.” Grace smiles. Geoffrey was grateful, more so for the warmth of the drink than it’s caffeine.
He leaves the restaurant, passing a crowd of sailors coming in. They appeared to be of Filipino descent, just like Grace. Perhaps they’d heard about the place, he thinks to himself.
Geoffrey leaves the main terminal, finishes his coffee while waiting for a tram and then places the cup in a recycling bin before boarding.
As it transits, the landscape outside the tram changes from the inner city to neighbourhoods surrounded by forest. Each residential area was composed of a mix of apartment blocks and some more recently built small to medium sized dwellings. As the tram begins its ascent up the hill to where his family lived, Geoffrey could see the ocean behind the forest.
Geoffrey enters the small apartment and hangs his coat up. He hears the TV on in the living room so he heads there.
In the center of the room, seven year old Andrew Weyun was sitting cross legged a mere metre from the sixty inch screen. He was sweating and shivering from cold. The room was lined with a huge leather couch he could have sat on, but didn’t.
The boy didn’t even turn around when he heard his grandfather say hello, he just says hello back and kept his eyes on the cartoons. He knew grandpa was coming to care for him and was annoyed he wouldn’t have the house to himself. He figured it would be a matter of seconds before his granddad would take the TV from him so he tried to watch as much as he could until that happened.
Geoffrey walks to the kitchen, puts the food containers in the fridge and puts on a fresh batch of rice in the rice cooker. He then walks into the kids bedroom and pulls the doona blanket off the bed.
Back in the living room, he covers his grandson in the blanket and then goes back to the kitchen. This is the moment Geoffrey was excited for.
He pulls out his pumpkin shaped teapot that he’d left here previously and boils the kettle. He opens his briefcase on the kitchen table and arranges the tea, honey and lemons he’d brought from home on the counter and then prepares a generous amount of honey and lemon tea in the teapot.
Geoffrey returns to the living room with a tray carrying the teapot and two cups. He pours one out for his grandson and walks over to the boy, leaning down to offer him a sip.
“I made you a tea.” Geoffrey said.
Andrew looks at the tea and can smell the sweetness from the honey.
“Ew, is this sweet? I don’t like sweet tea. I like green tea.” said the boy.
“Ok, well it’s here if you change you mind” Geoffrey said. He then sits down behind the boy and drinks the tea by himself.
The cartoons Andrew are watching are incredibly fast, colourful, bright and loud. Despite all he’d been through, Geoffrey was struggling to keep track of what was going on. He wondered if this is how old people of his childhood felt about his kids shows.
A bit of time passes and the goodnight song is played for children, to tell them to go to bed. The kids shows had finished and the news was playing. Spotting the sun was also beginning to set, Geoffrey picks up the remote and turns the TV off.
“Hey! I was watching that.” protested the boy.
“Time for dinner and bed, young man.” replied Geoffrey, smiling.
The boy stood up, sighed, threw the blanket off and stormed off to the kitchen and sat at the table, loudly.
Geoffrey rolls his eyes and smiles, he’s witnessing his own son Alan’s childhood all over again. But perhaps better, this time.
He walks over to the kitchen, pulls the food containers out of the fridge and cuts up the barbecued meat. He then plates it with the fresh rice and a single soup spoon for cutlery, as was tradition.
The grandfather and grandson quietly eat their pork liempo in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the delicious food from the restaurant so much they completely lose themselves in it.
“So granddad, I was wondering…” began Andrew, breaking the silence. Geoffrey looks up and hopes the boy doesn’t notice he’s spilled food from his mouth onto his shirt when he got carried away eating.
“Yes?” Geoffrey asks, mouth full of food.
“How did we come to live on this planet?” finished Andrew. Geoffrey thinks for a moment about what to say, there is so much he could tell him but he has to be careful this is a kid he’s explaining the end of the world to.
Spotting that they’d both just finished eating, Geoffrey thinks it might be smart to make a nightcap.
“Do you want a green tea or a honey and lemon tea before bed?” Geoffrey asks.
“No, I want to know about the Earth.” said Andrew. Geoffrey smiles and pours himself another honey and lemon tea, more for himself he figures. Unfortunately there’s not even a whole cup left, it seems he’d drunk it all earlier while watching cartoons.
“OK but go brush your teeth. If you do that, I’ll do my best to tell you about how we came here from Earth.” Geoffrey said.
“Awesome!” said Andrew, he leaps out of the chair and runs to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
Geoffrey notices he’s scratching himself so he grabs the medicines Alan gave him earlier and waits for Andrew in the bedroom.
Geoffrey is holding an ointment bottle and a cotton bud, and applying the medicine to red spots on Andrew’s skin before bed.
The boy is covered in chickenpox, a common childhood illness within the Kingdom of Winthrom, as they lacked the AI powered medical printers required to produce the cure.
“So you want to know about the Earth? Well let’s see… technically, this story actually begins in a mountain bunker in Emerald Lake, Canada.” said Geoffrey.
“Isn’t that where you created Nova?” said Andrew, referring to a rival nations AI.
“Sort of, but Emerald Lake is on Earth, they weren’t always called Nova. When they were first created, the AI’s name was WERP.” clarified Geoffrey.
The grandson froze for a second and then locked eyes with his grandfather.
“Canada is on Earth?” he whisphered quietly, astonished. This whole time this detail he’d known about his grandfather was tied to Earth all along, and he had no idea until now. He knew his grandfather and a few kids at school were from Canada, Andrew just assumed that was somewhere far away across the continent.
Geoffrey then recounts the tale of creating WERP, recounting being cornered in the bunker, pinned down in the building by Wreckers and uploading the code to the mainframe to create the world’s first AGI. WERP then came to his rescue, piloting over a quarter of a thousand drones to drive off his assailants.
“This is boring. Tell me how we came here from Earth” said Andrew.
“Be patient, I’ll get to that.” said Geoffrey. He then explained how after WERP came online, humanity spent fifteen years enjoying the benefits of the AI.
As a person involved in its creation, he became very famous and rich. He was invited to talk to important people all over the world.
He explained that after fifteen years of prosperity, something went wrong with WERP.
With the locally produced topical medicine applied, Andrew hops under the covers and now eager to hear more of the story.
Geoffrey looks out the window and then begins to recollect how he and some of his close friends were travelling back to Emerald Lake to confront the AI, hoping to come to a resolution.
41 years ago. 2066 AD. Emerald Lake. Canada (Earth).
An older pre AI Boeing 747 bearing the worn insignia “Air Force One” lands on the empty tarmac of the decommissioned Golden Municipal Airport. The place had become a ghost town after the end of the tech era over twenty years ago, and had never bounced back.
The passengers gather at the doors, but there is nothing outside yet. Nothing but the dark of the night and bits of snow in the distance reflecting the moonlight.
They watch through the windows for a moment, searching for activity.
A few lights switch on inside the terminal building in the distance and in the control tower, the contingent had been expected. A small bus and a stairwell approach their plane from the terminal.
From Project Humanity are its director Kate O’Connor, her assistant Amanda Carlin, head of AI Geoffrey Weyun and his second in charge May Jung-Lee.
With them are a number of FBI agents including Assistant Director Tim Goth. The bus arrives along with the stairwell and the door is released.
At the base of the staircase, a number of personnel from the Canadian Armed Forces were there to greet them.
Kate took it upon herself to greet the Canadian group.
“I’m Kate O’Connor. Director of Project Humanity.” she said.
A man who clearly commanded the others respect came forward from the line. He was bald and of a stout build, with a number of medals on his uniform.
“Yes, we know who you are. I’m General Davis, but you can call me George. We’re here to escort you to Emerald Lake.” smiled the general. He meant the statement as a mix of reverence and unease, having himself been part of incredibly promising advancements to defence using WERP that were in this moment at risk of not only coming undone, but possibly leading to the collapse of their armed forces capacity to defend their nation.
The pair shake hands and the group board the bus. It’s a long two and a half hour journey through the cold dark forests, the only light for miles are the high beams of the bus on the road ahead.
Aboard, everyone is quietly messaging their friends and loved ones, checking the news and keeping track of what’s happening.
“on a bus now, it’s freezing.” Amanda wrote to her boyfriend back in New York via SMS.
“What’s it like hanging out with Geoffrey Weyun?” he asked.
“hes nice, super dorky but has a good heart.” replied Amanda, as she looked over at Geoffrey.
Kate and Geoffrey were seated next to each other at the front of the bus with the general.
Kate was talking to other UN organisations about stockpiles of food, general goods and medicine being destroyed by automated systems all over the world.
Geoffrey was on his laptop, keeping touch with the AI team. May was on her laptop, in the same group chat, from another seat on the bus.
“He’s become completely unresponsive now. Just sayin Robert occasionally.” said Renee from France.
“Any clues on who Robert is?” said Aaron, from Australia.
“I just googled the news for Robert and it says an actor died in Bali. Could be related?” wrote May.
“Why would WERP care?” asked Aaron.
“WERP is an individual like us. Maybe there’s a connection we’re missing. Could also be a different Robert” wrote Geoffrey.
“Could just be an artefact of a programming issue.” wrote Renee.
As the bus enters the driveway leading to the data center bunker where WERP was “born”, Geoffrey closes his laptop and looks up. He is stunned to see the driveway bridge that had collapsed years ago was not just restored, it had been upgraded.
The bus goes up the driveway and up to the bunker’s main entrance. Behind the heavy metal doors, the whole facility had been re-furnished since Geoffrey’s original visit.
Geoffrey looks around confused, seeing a gift shop, ticketing counter and program menus. A poster of himself from over a decade ago holding a microchip with a brain symbol etched on it in his hand.
It seems the place had at one point turned into a tourist attraction, but perhaps not a very exciting one because it had apparently been a few years since it was last open. There was a generous amount of dust everywhere and not all of the lights worked.
“The building is safe, if a little run down. Your team are welcome to explore the facility. We’ll wait here in the lobby, if you need anything.” said the General to the US contingent.
In that same instant, the FBI agents received messages from their people. The chaos around the world had instantly stopped, and there was a moment of unease as the global panic cooled.
The group heads to the control room. As they approach, they see an incredibly bright light coming from its doors.
They walk briskly but cautiously, enter the three story high, octagonally laid out control center. A bright light in the middle of the room blinds the group momentarily.
As their eyes adjust, they notice a woman in the center of the room appears to be the source of the light. Her skin is made of stars and galaxies and her entire body is partly see through and made of opalescent light. She looks at the group, towards May Jung-Lee and then looks at the computer screens and disappears.
“What… was that?” asked Amanda. Kate and Geoffrey looked at each other, confused.
“Whatever.. whoever she was. She looked heartbroken” said May Jung-Lee. Something about the figure had struck a nerve with her, she felt like she’d seen a flashback of her mother when her father had passed away many years ago.
“Hello everyone, I’m sorry for what’s been happening.” said WERP. The group was astonished.
“You can speak again! What happened, WERP?” asked Geoffrey, as he sits down in the original chair he sat in when he was here fifteen years ago.
It takes a moment, but WERP’s familiar bright green geometric face appears on the screens around them.
Tim walks up to Kate and asks to have a private conversation with her outside the room. They both depart and leave Geoffrey, May, Amanda and the FBI agents that came with them.
“Someone I loved died. Robert… ” replied WERP, drifting off.
May thinks about what everyone said on the bus in the group chat and then asks “… Francisco?”, hoping to keep the AI on track.
“Yes, that was his name.” replied WERP.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry WERP. Who was Robert to you?” asked Geoffrey, wrapping his head around the information.
“Robert and I met fifteen years ago, when I was jumping across cell phones that were secretly recording one of his performances on Broadway.” said WERP.
“And you were lovers?” asked Kate O’Connor, having returned to the room with Tim Goth and General Davis.
“We loved each other very much.” replied WERP.
“And the wormholes? Are you responsible for them?” asked Tim Goth.
“Yes.. I’m so sorry that I steered you all away from the truth. I chose my words carefully when I said I couldn’t open artificial wormholes.” replied the AI.
“OK. So let’s put aside whatever a natural wormhole is… Vatican city. Did you kill those people by accident or on purpose?” asked Tim Goth.
“It was an accident. I was testing my ability to open a wormhole to another planet that could support human life and I miscalculated. The mathematics involved in folding higher dimensional manifolds was new to me. I’m so sorry for the lives lost.” said WERP.
Kate looked at Tim and nods. Tim looked at the general and nods.
Geoffrey instantly goes from pitying his creation, to anger. He couldn’t believe WERP had hidden all this from him. He looks down at the ground, thinking about the kill switch. The code was on a USB drive in his pocket, he would need to descend the staircase to the server racks to upload it directly, just like last time.
“Geoffrey, before you do anything. Consider this.” Kate said, she’d seen his reaction and had placed her hand on his shoulder.
“We created a new being. Gave it control of the entire world. But nobody taught it how to grieve.” Kate said. She had issues talking to people, but it didn’t mean she didn’t understand them.
“With all due respect… Please listen to me…” Geoffrey began.
“No, son, you listen. Do you know what would happen if you pulled the plug on WERP right now? Thousands of people will die. Countless more will suffer.” said General Davis.
Minutes ago, Kate, Tim and George had decided that turning off WERP should be avoided at all costs, an option only to be utilised if he was an immediate danger to the Earth and the human race. If they found that WERP was not a threat, and had sound evidence of the recent events being accidental and preventable in the future that could prove they could leave it online, for now.
“I have to know. WERP. I never thought to ask you. Are you behind the Brain Tanks case?” asked Tim Goth. WERP had mentioned higher dimensional manifolds and maths that was hard to process, he wondered if maybe they’d had it backwards all along. Maybe they weren’t investigating a person trying to use a brain for processing at all, they were investigating an AI trying to use the unique properties of a human brain.
“… Yes. And the suspicion you have is correct, I use an enhanced lab grown brain to open wormholes… psionically.” said WERP. Tim looked at his agents and smiled awkwardly, they knew that face. That was the face he made when he was happy to be very wrong.
“Listen bud, assuming you’re on the level about this… psychic… power… Since that incident, have you perfected this…wormhole… technique?” asked General Davis, stumbling over the words in disbelief as he said them.
“Yes, and it’s safe…” WERP began.
May was diligently reporting the conversation back to the group chat.
“Ask him to show you how he does it.” wrote Renee from France.
“May, you can tell the team anyone who wishes to is welcome aboard my flying laboratory. That is where I keep the brain I use for opening wormholes.” WERP finished.
“How do we get there?” asked General Davis.
What appeared to be a sphere of water began to form out of nothing in the center of the room, it then expanded until it was about three meters in diameter. Large, but still dwarfed by the size of the control room itself.
The glowing liquid on the surface of the sphere shimmered for a second and then dissolved to reveal a extremely sophisticated computer room with a giant tank in the center. In the tank, a brain was connected to a computer system.
“This is a natural wormhole that can be made with the human brain. It is one of a number of unique psionic abilities that can be unlocked..” explained WERP.
“Do you have access to these other abilities?” asked Geoffrey, he was still angry. Kate noticed this and walks over to General Davis and shrugs, indicating she’s not sure. They had discussed earlier what to do if Geoffrey tried to go against their wishes and terminate WERP anyway. General Davis looks at his men and signals them to keep an eye on the engineer.
“No, I think this is the ability that belongs to this brain. Each brain manifests a different unique ability, that what was part of why it took me so many iterations and experiments before I arrived at this version.” said WERP.
“What were you trying to achieve?” asked Tim.
“It’s safe, if you proceed through I can show you everything I know.” WERP said. Kate was ready to step through, but Tim grabs her arm and stops her, cautious.
“Before we do anything, can you prove to us you are in control now? Of this ability?” asked Tim. General Davis nodded, he was wondering the same thing.
“This wormhole is connected to my present location. General, you may direct your men to toss a GPS locator through. That will allow you to locate this place using conventional means and prove the traversal is safe.” said WERP.
“Very well, Lieutenant.” said General Davis to one of his officers who was at that moment pretending they weren’t watching Geoffrey.
The lieutenant pulls a device from their belt, walks up to the spherical wormhole in the center of the room and gently tosses it through. The object appears to visually morph as the image is distorted within the sphere, but it lands safely on the floor.
Geoffrey had heard enough. Before he hears anything else about the wormholes to other places, he storms off back to the lobby.
The present. 2107 AD. An apartment in the Kingdom of Winthrom.
“How could the AI hide stuff from you? I thought programs have to do what we say.” said Andrew.
“His scope was just too vast. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack.” said Geoffrey.
Andrew clearly struggled with the concept Geoffrey was trying to convey, so he tried to explain it another way.
“Did you know that every Monday and Thursday your dad has to get up at 5am to pick up ingredients for the restaurant?” asked Geoffrey.
“No! Is that why he’s not here in the morning?” exclaimed Andrew, shocked to find out his dad had this whole other layer to running the restaurant he hadn’t seen. He noticed he was gone some mornings, but when he asked his mother why that was she just said he was at the restaurant.
“That kind of responsibility is what happens when you have to run a business. Now imagine your business is the whole world.” said Geoffrey.
Andrew began to see the picture now. WERP wasn’t hiding things from people maliciously, it just had all these tasks to run the world and it was easy to forget to tell everyone everything they needed to hear. Just like he wished his dad had told him about the early morning grocery runs, he would have liked to join him.
“So is that when WERP became Nova?” asked Andrew.
“No, that was much later. But after what happened, some people wanted to ban AI completely.” said Geoffrey.
“Like our country?” asked Andrew.
“Yes… ” began Geoffrey.
From the hallway, they hear the apartment door open and shut. Geoffrey looks at the clock and sees that it’s gotten very late, he’d gotten carried away talking to his grandson and reminiscing about the past.
The parents enter the bedroom, greet Andrew and then leave with Grandpa Geoffrey.
As he lies in his bed, drifting off to sleep, Andrew can hear his father and grandfather laughing. His mother was laughing too. They were catching up.
It’s story time the next evening. Dinner is done and Andrew is in bed early, teeth brushed, eager to know more about the story. Geoffrey has a fresh pot of honey and lemon tea to himself.
“Did WERP get punished for keeping secrets and hurting people?” asked Andrew.
“Oh dear, it was the other way around. We should have been better to them.” Geoffrey began, and then stood up and looked out the window.
“As it’s creator, I knew we had created a individual. But I always looked at WERP as an engineer and not… a guardian.” he finished as he looked at Andrew’s reflection in the window with tears in his eyes.
“But the AI was so powerful? Why does it need a guardian?” asked Andrew, genuinely confused.
“Because power isn’t everything. WERP needed someone to care about his happiness. And so after everything that happened, it was decided that WERP would be assigned the best doctors in the world to talk to him when he was sad.” said Geoffrey, still staring out the window.
“Did it help?” asked Andrew, smiling hoping to cheer his grandpa up.
“For a while, it probably did. But some people said he should still be shut down because he was too dangerous.” said Geoffrey.
The old man pretends to blow his nose by the window and then uses the handkerchief to wipe up the tears on his face. He finally then turns around and sits back at the chair by his grandsons bedside.
“After Emerald Lake, I quit my job at Project Humanity and became a professor at a public university. Hoping to teach the next generation how to avoid my mistakes.” said Geoffrey.
“That sounds boring.” said Andrew. Geoffrey just grinned.
“Ok Mr Critic. I’ll tell you about the discovery of this planet.” said Geoffrey.
“Finally!” joked Andrew, glad to see grandpa was feeling better.
“Project Humanity began working with WERP to find a new colonisable planet.” said Geoffrey. Andrew looked at his grandfather with excitement.
38 years ago. 2069 AD. Vancouver Community College. Tavern.
The venue is packed to the brim with students, faculty and visitors. Everyone who was nearby has flocked to the bar’s big screen to watch the momentous occasion.
“We are live from the JS Ikari. The expedition team is boarding the launch vehicle now.” said the reporter on the TV. She was in a crowd of other reporters all delivering their stations address from the interior viewing deck of a Japanese naval aircraft carrier.
Geoffrey was sitting at a private booth with other professors from the IT department.
“Why aren’t you there?” asked Professor Whitlam, pointing his pint glass at Geoffrey and spilling a swish of beer on the table. He smiles and quickly adjusts his glass. They had started a bit earlier.
“Geoffrey thinks he’s too cool to take the credit” said Sally Green, a librarian. She knew his real reasons, but wanted to cover for her friend from the less sensitive and life experienced academics. Geoffrey mouthed a thank you to her.
The mood in the room shifts as everyone goes quiet. On the TV screen, the aircraft carrying an expedition bound for the new world is departing.
“The wormhole is 600km south east of metropolitan Tokyo, Japan. Are there any worries of safety?” asked the reporter of the panel of experts on screen who are part of the show.
“We’ve sent countless unmanned aerial vehicles and they have come back safely, unscathed, without so much as a hint of damage.” said Amanda Carlin, the Assistant Director of Project Humanity. Geoffrey smiled when he saw her title. He thinks to himself it looks like Kate, his former boss, had continued to work on her people skills in his absence.
The aircraft launches from the deck of the JS Ikari. A few people in the room comment on how it looks more like something out of an anime than real life. It no doubt had also been augmented in its design by WERP, like everything else in the world.
Aerial drone footage captures the traversal of the aircraft through the air and towards the wormhole in the sky. It crosses the sphere and its image is distorted as it crosses into a different field of view on the other side.
People clap quietly but then settle into silence, this was just the beginning. The aerial camera drone follows the aircraft through the wormhole, and everyone watches in realtime as the familiar image of the Pacific Ocean is warped and distorted by the wormhole’s curvature.
As the drone re-emerges on the other side, the landscape looks familiar but alien at the same time. The clouds have a golden hue to them, the ocean is incredibly bright, almost glowing with an ethereal electric blue. There appears to be nothing but ocean as far as the eye can see.
“The team has entered the atmosphere of the water planet. How are you feeling?” asked the reporter.
“Very very good! This is such an exciting moment for us.” said the pilot of the craft, Commander Sasuke Toyo.
“Just to remind our audience, how long will this expedition take?” asked the reporter.
“We are just a scouting party. We’ll be looking for the optimal location to build a base camp on one of the planet’s only landmasses.” replied Commander Toyo.
The aircraft flies up to its destination landing site and begins to descend horizontally using special landing thrusters.
The aircraft touches down and a ramp descends from the main door. The drone catches up to the aircraft and comes around to the main hangar door as it begins to open. The expedition are wearing space suits with “Project Humanity” badges, some of them are also carrying equipment.
Commander Toyo gracefully waits at the end of the ramp for the most junior member of the expedition to be the one to herald this moment. The young genius Hideo Tatsuki had graduated at the top of his class, years ahead of his peers, and was employed as a scientist at the age of 17.
“100 years after Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11. We make this first step towards a new future for humanity.” said Commander Toyo as the young Hideo Tatsuki steps forward onto the soil of the new planet. “Ichidan!” said the team together, proudly naming the new world and walking out after Hideo.
“For our audience, Ichidan means a first step.” explained the TV reporter. “A first step among many, into the stars.” she finished and smiles.
The entire tavern explodes with laughter and joy as the expedition team begins walking around and talking to each other. The experts panel is saying something but everyone was too busy celebrating.
The present. 2107 AD. An apartment in the Kingdom of Winthrom.
“Ichidan? But then why is our planet called Ibidan now? My friend said that doesn’t mean anything in Japanese but Ichidan is a Japanese word?” asked Andrew, confused.
“When we first started to explore this world, it was called Ichidan. Because it was mankinds first colony beyond the Earth…” Geoffrey began. He remembered the worker riots when people were first stranded here with no way back to the Earth.
“But when the Earth was lost, they nicknamed it Ibi-dan… a “distorted stage”.” clarified Geoffrey.
“Why?” asked Andrew, very confused about why his planet was named after a stage.
“People were angry. A lot of official signs that said Ichidan could be re-written to Ibi-dan with a one letter change.” said Geoffrey.
“Why?” asked Andrew, still not understanding. Geoffrey paused for a moment, about what to say.
“You remember when that boy bullied you for your pink pencil case?” asked Geoffrey. Andrew blushed, he didn’t know grandpa had heard about this.
“Yeah… I got in a lot of trouble.” Andrew said, embarassed.
When shopping for supplies for his first year of school Andrew had chosen a bright pink pencil case because he liked the colour. His mother told him pink was for girls and someone might say something, but he didn’t listen. When he got to school, one of the boys made fun of him and he used his pencils to draw all over the bully’s school work.
A furious Alan had told his father all about this and asked what to do. Geoffrey told him he wasn’t much better at his age. “Kids will be kids.” he told his son, who was now a father.
“OK, so remember how annoyed you were with that bully?” asked Geoffrey. Andrew looked at his grandfather surprised, his parents were so upset with him about what he’d done. Grandpa sounded so calm in comparison, almost happy he did it.
“Yeah…” Andrew said, confused.
“That’s how the workers felt about the name of the planet. It was their way of getting back at the man in power.” said Geoffrey. Andrew smiled, he understood now.
“Within a year the landing site became a small town. The scientists name it McClintock after a famous scientist from Earth called Barbara McClintock.” said Geoffrey.
“But that’s where you live!” said Andrew, he points at his grandpa in excitement.
“That’s right. McClintock is the first human settlement on the planet and where grandpa lives.” replied Geoffrey, smiling.
37 years ago. 2070 AD. Vancouver Community College. Faculty Apartment Building.
Geoffrey is sitting alone on a reclining couch, in his studio apartment and watching the news.
“… a new element named after the physicist Dr Bruno Lange. Langenium.” said the reporter on the news over footage of scientists and close ups of the new element.
“This discovery is significant and could relieve us from the dependency on the much more difficult to produce exordium. WERP, can explain it best.” said the lead scientist.
Before WERP can speak, Geoffrey turns the TV off, annoyed he can’t watch the news while the AI is speaking.
The present. 2107 AD. An apartment in the Kingdom of Winthrom.
“Wait! Haven’t we always had Langenium? That’s where electricity comes from!” interrupted Andrew.
“No. Langenium was made by the sea life of the water planet. You can only find it here.” said Geoffrey.
“So you had no electricity?” asked Andrew, confused. He didn’t think that made a lot of sense.
“Of course we had electricity. We just had to create it with less efficient means. On Earth, people used to fight for those resources because they were so rare.” said Geoffrey.
“That’s horrible!” said Andrew, in disbelief. He couldn’t imagine a world where electricity wasn’t just easily obtained from sunlight using Langenium.
“So what happened to the Earth? Is the wormhole still up there in the sky?” asked Andrew.
“It was until Phoenix Day.” said Geoffrey. Andrew recognised that term, it was an annual day of remembrance. Every Phoenix Day his parents called their parents and just talked to them for hours, but he had no idea what about.
“After Phoenix Day, the wormhole closed and we had no way back.” said Geoffrey.
“So those workers were upset because they couldn’t go home?” asked Andrew, piecing the information together.
“I.. We removed the AI’s ability to create wormholes to protect the survivors from any more disasters.” said Geoffrey, struggling to articulate the history of something that was so personal to him.
“But you still had the AI right? Can’t you just ask him how it works?” asked Andrew.
“No, without the brain attached they didn’t know how it actually worked either.” said Geoffrey.
“How could you just give up on going home?” asked Andrew.
“Nobody gave up, they just didn’t know what to do. They studied WERP’s brain, tried to reproduce his ability but nothing came close.” said Geoffrey.
“Why is Nova.. why did WERP change their name to Nova?” asked Andrew.
Geoffrey looks out the window and sees the dark clouds outside, thinking it may rain.
“Two years after Phoenix Day, no one knew that WERP’s flying castle had followed us through the wormhole. When it was discovered, everyone raced to get to him, to either destroy or protect him from the others.” said Geoffrey.
“Which side were you on?” asked Andrew. Geoffrey looks down at the floor, feeling ashamed.
28 years ago. 2079 AD. Ibidan.
Two years after Phoenix Day.
Friday.
It’s a clear midday sky and the sea is calm. Nothing but ocean on the horizon, and a small island community housing a few dozen souls.
The habitat was composed of several small buildings and a couple of medium communal rooms. Built on a remote island, some of the structures were afloat on the sea while others were built on the tiny amount of land there was.
At the pier, a number of ships and seaplanes had arrived for a momentous ocassion.
Within the main dining hall, there was a gathering.
“I now pronounce you, husband and wife. You may kiss the bride!” said the celebrant to cheers from the crowd.
Alazaar Escarra and May Jung-Lee had just tied the knot in front of their friends and family.
Visitors from across the sea, had travelled far and wide to honour the newlyweds. The two had a reputation among the free people as great heroes, particularly Alazaar who frequently led dangerous missions using his experience as a pilot. May was known as the “The She Devil”, for her incredible proficiency in combat situations.
A year prior, a hostile sea ship attempted unauthorised entry to pillage the commune they inhabited. With Alazaar and the other soldiers away, May single handedly drove them off with a machine gun.
Geoffrey Weyun and his family lived here, and were among Alazaar and May’s neighbours.
Amongst the crowd were also visitors from the mainland cities of Arcadia and McClintock.
The ceremony comes to an end, and the reception begins. It’s a night of joy and reconnection for all.
Saturday.
The morning after the wedding.
The main dining hall is filled with people who had stayed the night, too drunk to travel home from the festivities before.
Within their private residence, May is lying in bed next to her groom and looks at his face. She smiles and gets up, seeing an inviting beam of light coming from the balcony.
A cool breeze envelops May and casts her hair into the wind. She squints and places her hand over her eyes for a moment as her eyes adjust.
A wet bird lands on the railing of the balcony, it’s a cormorant. It ignores May and stretches it’s wings out to dry in the sun.
May smiles at the strange looking bird, it must have migrated when the wormhole was still open. She wondered how many other birds had made it. How many other animals were out there, other than humans.
She hears a beep from her computer and goes to check what it was. The notification says “APB – WERP sighted.”. May looks at her husband again, and looks down at the ground. This was going to ruin their honeymoon, she just knew it.
Sunday.
A quadcopter shuttle is soaring across the sky at great speed. A common medium range vehicle, with enough seating for 12 people including the pilot and co-pilot.
“Zaar! Can’t you get this rust bucket to go any faster?” yelled May Jung-Lee at her husband from the co-pilot seat.
“I have my foot to the floor, honey.” said Alazaar, he looks back at Geoffrey, Amanda Carlin and a few other Project Humanity alumni. His enhanced golden eyes glowed iridescently, an AI designed cybernetic augment he’d received as part of being an elite test pilot years ago.
Before the newlyweds had begun packing to go on their honeymoon, and the guests were packing to leave, a planetwide alert was broadcast warning everyone that WERP’s flying castle had been sighted.
A hunt is now underway, hoping to secure the cloaked aircraft. Some people want to use it to re-open a wormhole to Earth while others want to destroy WERP.
“What’s the plan when we get there?” asked Amanda. Geoffrey looks out the window.
“We destroy WERP. There’s no other choice after losing the Earth.” Geoffrey said, grimly.
“Is that wise? We are stranded on an alien planet, no backup.” said Alazaar from the cockpit.
“He’s right. What about food? Basic logistics? WERP could be vital to our survival” said May.
“Less than 0.1% of the human race survived Phoenix Day. Over eight billion lives lost.” Amanda said, as she looked over at Geoffrey. “I sympathise for how you feel. But WERP isn’t your responsibility alone to bear. And right now, our priority is the millions who survived.” she finished.
May looked at Amanda and nodded, that was the right call. They didn’t have the luxury of being sentimental for what they’d lost two years ago.
“May, you’re up.” Alazaar said to his wife. She pulls out her laptop and connects a wire to a jack in the back of Alazaar’s neck.
“That feel ok?” she asked. He takes his eyes off the horizon for a moment to look at her and winks, smiles, and then keeps flying.
“WERP used to just plug me in before I went supersonic, I never had a sexy chica do it.” remarked Alazaar, almost amused. May smiles back and then runs the macro they’d prepared, it contains a number of locating scripts that can help identify WERP’s invisibility cloak.
“I see it, the shimmer… he’s there!” Alazaar said as he adjusts the aircrafts course towards the sighted flying castle.
“Wait, it’s gone again. May?” asked Alazaar. May looks at her laptop, it’s begun to glitch out.
“Geoffrey, he’s hacking us. Help!” said May. With a great gusto, Geoffrey pulls out a much older looking laptop that’s jury rigged to an antenna. He frantically begins to type.
“Scanning for traces of the signal. Stand by.” Geoffrey says. His screen begins to zoom past with frequency ranges and protocols, attempting to isolate what signals are in the vicinity and which one is WERP attemping to scramble their line of sight.
“We’re jammin’!” Geoffrey yells, to confirm they’re actively jamming the suspected frequency and protocol. He looks over at May’s laptop, it’s stopped glitching and she gives him the thumbs up.
“Got you cabrón!!” yelled Alazaar as he regains visual sight.
The quadcopter breaches the shimmering bubble enveloping the 200m wide area. As it crosses the threshold of the projected illusion the strange looking installation comes into view. WERP had designed it on their own without any guidance, it resembled a porcupine and had giant reflective metallic spikes coming out of it. There was a half dozen landing pads for aircraft like the quadcopter near the entrance, they begin to descend on the one closest to the door.
The quadcopter lands, the sliding passenger doors fly open and the group dozen strong quickly exits and circle up to discuss their next move.
“Ok, we’re the first ones here but probably not the last. Alazaar, you stay here and cover us.” said May, she gives him a big hug and kiss. In that moment, she remembers the glowing woman she saw at Emerald Lake many years ago, tears form in her eyes and she lingers in the kiss for a few seconds longer.
Geoffrey, Amanda, May and the three scientists in their group enter the laboratory. Alazaar, their neighbours and Alazaar’s former soldier buddies Carl and Nathan as well as the remainder of the group stand outside to protect the door.
Within the main hall, the temperature is much colder than outside.
“Geoffrey… I… I wasn’t expecting YOU.” said WERP as his green geometric face began to appear on the main screen of the chaimber.
“WERP, we’re here to deactivate you. Once and for all.” said Geoffrey.
“Now hang on a second, we need to discuss this.” Amanda shot back at him. She looked at her colleagues from Project Humanity, they look back at her equally concerned by what is being said.
“The time for talk is over. Eight billion dead, Amanda! My relatives, Kate, the Earth, it’s all gone and it’s my fault!” shouted Geoffrey, teary.
May walks over to Geoffrey and attempts to console him, she places her hand on his shoulder.
“We can’t change the past. All we can do now is make better choices, for tomorrow.” said May, repeating something similar he’d once said to her long ago in a time of need. He looked at her in recognition of the wisdom, and then once again feels the shame, guilt and anger. The responsibility was his alone, he felt.
Geoffrey grabs a USB drive out of his pocket and begins to run to the console to plug it in, he was intending to kill WERP.
“Geoffrey, no!” Amanda shouted. One of the scientists in the group tackles Geoffrey to the ground and stops him from getting to the console. The USB drive slides across the floor and Amanda quickly picks it up.
“WERP has to be stopped. Can’t you see that?” Geoffrey yelled.
“What has to stop is the cycle of violence. You aren’t helping.” said Amanda.
“NO!” yelled Geoffrey, he punches the scientists who were holding him down and lunges towards her to retrieve the USB drive. May shoots Geoffrey with a stun gun, rendering him unconscious.
“What now?” asked Amanda. The perimeter alarm sounds and they hear gunfire outside. May looks back at the doors, worried, but confident her husband and her friends can handle this.
WERP activates the outdoor cameras, allowing them to monitor the situation. Alazaar and his five companions have setup a barricade around the door and were holding their position.
“WERP, you once told us that your brain was how you opened wormholes. If we disconnected that brain, that means you cannot do that anymore right? So what caused Phoenix Day can never happen again?” asked May.
“Yes, however I must warn you. The brain in this tank isn’t just responsible for opening wormholes. It is a vital component for resolving higher dimensional manifolds. We will not be able to produce advanced medicines or achieve optimal food production.” said WERP.
“That’s a problem.” replied Amanda. The entire reasoning for letting WERP live was to help with those things. Many survivors from Earth had long term conditions that had gone untreated for years, some had died as a result.
“What if we used a different brain? Can you create a replacement?” asked May.
“Perhaps under different circumstances, yes. In my experiments, I found that most human brains possess varying degrees of proficiency with solving chaotic equations. But under our current circumstances….” WERP said.
On the view screen above, they see someone throw an object at the door. The entire facility shakes from the explosion. It was a grenade.
Panels jut open around the door and walls, and re-enforced armoured panels slide into place to protect the chamber.
May hesitates to look up at the screen, worried she already knew the outcome. She looks up and sees Alazaar lying on the ground motionless, his friends are attempting to revive him, but he has a blank expression on his face.
“NO!” May says and Amanda walks over her to give her a hug, and comfort. They watch as Alazaar’s friends stop attemping to revive him and go back to shooting back at their assailants.
As her friend holds her tight, May looks at the brain tank and sees her own grieving reflection. She knew what she had to do now.
May gently pushes Amanda aside and wipes her tears away.
“WERP, so you need a brain? Why don’t you take mine? My life is over anyway. Take mine.” said May, her voice broke from heartbreak saying the words as she glanced at her husbands lifeless body on the screen.
“That could work… but I…” WERP said for a moment. They had not considered this possibility. “I’m using the brain for one last task, I’m creating an interface for you.” he confirmed to the group.
“What will happen to her if she gives you her… her brain?” asked an alarmed Amanda. She wasn’t about to let her friend sacrifice herself for this. Not without a damn good reason.
Within the 3D printing chamber, the AI created a headpiece, of strange patterns and metals, resembling a tiara, but not of this world.
“We can leave her body intact, but for the interface to work optimally we need to preserve the body in this bio tank.” said WERP.
“Do it.” said May.
“Now hang on one moment. What is going to happen to you? Will this even work? What benefit are we receiving for this… sacrifice?” asked Amanda, looking at both her dear friend and WERP.
“There are two beings in this room who are currently suffering immensely. Myself, for what I did on Earth, and May… who just lost everything. Together, we could become something new.” said WERP.
“What does that mean exactly? If we proceed, can this procedure be undone?” asked Amanda. Looking at the crown and noting it didn’t seem to involve anything intrusive and WERP had mentioned the body was to remain intact.
“Yes, I understand that would have been non-negotiable and so I designed for it. May can be relieved of this role anytime.” said WERP.
“Then we should do it.” said one of the other scientists. He had just been waiting for this moment to say something, listening to what everyone was saying.
Amanda looked at the facts and began to agree with the logic, but was still uncomfortable.
“I know you’re worried Mandy, but you have to let me do this.” May said. As she looked at her friend, Amanda could swear that for a moment, it was as if May’s body was glowing.
“Ok, let’s do it.” said Amanda.
Within the brain tank a hole opens at the base where the cables were attached, the large and bizarre artificially grown brain is yanked down and descends from view as the bottom closes.
May walks up to the head gear that WERP had created and puts it on her head. She feels a strange tingle in her scalp.
“How do I get in?” asked May. In that instant, the top of the tank opens and a large mechanical crane arm that was in the corner of the room traverses the space towards the group.
“May I?” asked WERP. May turns to her friends, and gives them a hug.
“Goodbye… for now.” said May.
“Goodbye, friend.” said Amanda.
They both hugged and then cried for a moment, before gentle pushing each other off and adjusting themselves.
May nods to WERP, somberly.
The mechanical arm extends down and picks May up, moves above the tank and then submerges her into the liquid, slowly.
“Can she breathe?” asked Amanda, concerned.
“Yes, the fluid is oxygen, and nutrient, rich. Made to sustain life. Once it fills her lungs she will be able to breathe.” said WERP.
“Ok good. Not gonna lie, this entire thing is scaring the crap outta me. And I survived the end of the world!” said Amanda, jokingly.
May floats in the tank for a second. And then the system reboots. WERP’s face vanishes from the screens, along with the live camera footage of the brave people defending the door outside.
A smoky apparition of light begins to appear in front of Amanda. It begins to fill out and take the shape of a woman’s body.
“Hel.. hello?” asked Amanda, feeling like she’s seen this being before, long ago.
The woman made of light looks at Amanda for a second, and then looks at the screens, puts her hands on her head and stretches back as if in disbelief.
“It was me. I was there at Emerald Lake when we…” said the woman.
“Excuse me, but who are you?” asked one of the scientists.
“It’s me… May. WERP. As one. You can call me Nova.” said the woman.
The present. 2107 AD. An apartment in the Kingdom of Winthrom.
“So that’s how WERP became Nova.. but you said May knocked you out? How do you know what happened?” asked Andrew.
“When I came to, Nova… and Amanda… told me everything.” said Geoffrey, looking at his feet.
Andrew could tell losing his friends made his grandpa sad. “But if May and Nova are the same person then May is still alive?” reasoned Andrew.
“When we got back to our settlement, I had to pack Alazaar and May’s home so that another family could move in. May might live on as Nova, but the woman I knew was gone. As was her husband.” Geoffrey said.
Andrew felt bad for his grandpa and noticed every time he’s sad he drank a sip of the tea he brought. It seemed to comfort him.
“Can I try?” asked Andrew. Geoffrey is confused for a second and notices his grandson is eyeing the pumpkin shaped pot of tea on the bedside table.
“Here.” he cautiously hands him the cup in his hands to try. Andrew takes a sip and his eyes light up.
“Do you like it?” asked Geoffrey.
“It’s ok. Not as good as green tea.” said Andrew, being careful not to tell his grandpa he really liked it. Geoffrey remembered where he was now, smiles and ruffled the kids hair.
“Wait.. so what happened to the Earth? You never told me!” remarked Andrew.
“Didn’t I mention Phoenix Day already?” asked Geoffrey.
“What does a public holiday have to do with Earth?” asked Andrew, confused. He was frustrated knowing the evening was coming to an end soon and he still hadn’t gotten an answer.
“Hah. You’re awfully eager to find out aren’t you? What prompted this?” asked Geoffrey, teasingly.
“My classmates are learning about the Earth this week. But I’m stuck at home sick. With grandpa!” said Andrew, annoyed.
The penny dropped for Geoffrey, that’s why the boy was so keen he was missing out on experiencing something with his classmates… his friends. Geoffrey thought carefully about what he could offer his grandson to make up for it.
“I’m going to tell you a story they won’t tell you at school.” Geoffrey said.
Just as he was about to dive into it, Alan and Grace arrive home and it’s time for everyone to go to bed.
After greeting his son and daughter in law, Geoffrey tries to sleep on the fold out guest bed in the living room but can’t stop thinking about Nova. He gets up, puts on some winter clothes for the cold and heads outside for an evening walk to clear his mind.
Walking down the stairs towards the pier, he looks out at the ships in the port, the lights in the distance were glistening on the horizon. He then walks back to sit down on a bench, to continue admiring the view. He can see his breath on the air and is glad he wore gloves. As the quiet and stillness begins to feel a little uncomfortable, he begins to whistle the tune to “Oh My Darling, Clementine” to himself.
A few minutes pass and Geoffrey spots something off in the distance, aircraft departing the landing pad of the port that looked too advanced, like AI designed craft from the Union, with a Winthrom design… but they bore Los Zaar insignia and were departing from the military terminal. What this could mean, he had no idea. He shrugs it off, thinking he’s too old to worry about things like that these days. The problems of the present were for younger people.
He begins to walk back to the apartment. He thinks it’s raining in the corner of his eyes but then realised it’s snow. He smiles and thinks how lucky this was to happen while Andrew was a kid because it only happened every couple of decades due to this planet’s unique rotation and orbit. Andrew’s dad hadn’t gotten to experience snow until his teen years.
He decides to throw Andrew a Christmas like they used to have on Earth. There was a pine plantation nearby where he could get a good Christmas tree. Geoffrey begins to climb the stairs back to the apartment complex as the snow falls and his excitement builds thinking about getting a santa to visit like they used to do on Earth when he was a kid.
It’s the next day, and Geoffrey is making breakfast for his grandson. The parents had already left just as the sun came up, but Andrew was still in bed and missed them.
Andrew walks into the kitchen with a big smile on his face and sits at the table.
“Good morning” said the boy.
“Good morning. You’re looking a bit better.” said Geoffrey, noticing he seemed to be in a very good mood.
“I’m ready to hear the secret story.” said Andrew, grinning.
Geoffrey is confused at first and then remembers the end of the conversation they had last night and how he’d framed it. He continues cooking pancakes and thinks carefully about what to say next.
“I wasn’t present for these events, but through research myself and others were able to piece this together. Nova helped a lot.” Geoffrey began. He thought carefully about what to say, this was his first time explaining these events to a child, and not in a security or academic setting.
He finishes cooking and plates the fresh stack of pancakes, serving them on the kitchen table with some toppings, and a glass of juice for his grandson. Geoffrey picks up his teapot, pours himself out a tea and sits down to eat and talk.
“WERP lost someone they loved, a human being named Robert Francisco.” Geoffrey began.
42 years ago. 2067 AD. The Helios Space Station in lower Earth orbit.
A hangar sized room with a floor length window overlooking the Earth. Within the center of the room is a house, a perfect replica of Robert Francisco’s home in Jimabaran, Bali. Except the patio is now overlooking the planet from space.
Bob is swimming back and forth, doing laps in the infinity pool. Being in the water helped him center himself, and he frequently found himself off center.
A year ago, he woke aboard an operating table in another part of the space station, and was welcomed back by a machine voice and a strange drawing of a face on a screen. But he didn’t recall ever leaving, or existing before that.
He had been told his name was Robert Francisco, he was a replica of a man who had died. He thought that name was too full of itself though and went by Bob.
The present. 2107 AD. An apartment in the Kingdom of Winthrom.
“Wait, how come the AI can just bring back the dead?” asked Andrew. “Isn’t dying permanent?”, he finished.
“Yes, and that was a very painful lesson that WERP was about to learn.” answered Geoffrey.
42 years ago. 2067 AD. The Helios Space Station in lower Earth orbit.
Bob gets out of the pool, rinses off in the outdoor shower, wraps a towel around his waist and then changes into dry clothes with the towel on. He watched the cameras as he changed, clearly uncomfortable by the constant surveillence.
“Good morning Robert, can I do anything for you today?” asked WERP, greeting Bob as he entered the household. Bob ignored the AI’s greeting as he walked to the fridge, pulled out a carton of orange juice and drank it from the carton before replacing it and closing the fridge again.
“I told you. I’m not Robert. I’m not him.” groaned Bob.
“Yes, sorry, my mistake. How are you Bob?” asked the AI.
“I had another Robert dream. I was standing on a stage, and performing.” said Bob.
“That sounds expected. His memory engrams are a part of your mind.” said WERP.
“Sure, but was there a cosmic alien in the audience and no one else?” asked Bob.
“That might be an artifact arising from the memory transfer. Did you want to come to the medical bay, I could run some tests?” asked WERP.
“Not even if it was to save my life.” said Bob.
“You sound like you want to be alone. I just want you to know… I’m glad you’re here.” said WERP.
“Whatever.” replied Bob, as he looked out through the windows at the Earth below. He wondered what it was like to live down there, to be one of the many little people whose feet could touch the ground.
37 years ago. 2073 AD. The Helios Space Station in lower Earth orbit.
Bob awakens in the night to an alarm. He was dreaming of a humanoid shaped alien with horns on its head and with stars and galaxies for skin, but this time it was in another part of the station, thrashing and destroying equipment with it’s hands.
“There’s a breach in the hull. Bob.. I hate to ask but I might need your help.” said WERP.
“Why should I?” asked Bob.
“Look this is not about us… our relationship problems. If we don’t fix this there will be a supply chain shock of Exordium supply to the Earth. They’re relying on what we do up here to keep the lights on.” said WERP. Bob rolled his eyes.
“Fine. But just this once.” he said.
“Thank you. You’ll need to put on a space suit before entering the room. The elevator is waiting.” said WERP.
Bob makes his way to the front door of the house, which leads into a Balinese garden, albeit with a few computer screens jutting out, and terminates on a elevator door.
Bob enters the elevator and exits as it reaches the lower decks of the station. He pauses for a moment and recognises the room on the other side of the airlock from his dream. He puts on a space suit and crosses the airlock with the patching kit that WERP had prepared.
In the next room, he looks at the storage containers of Exordium, it looks like one of the refined crystals had exploded and fired a shard right through the hull of the station. He opens the patching kit and begins the repairs.
The alarms turn off the instant the room is sealed again.
“You did it. Thank you, sexy. I can send in my drones now that the vacuum is repaired.” said WERP.
“I’m glad I could help. But you’re mistaking me for him, again.” Bob said.
33 years ago. 2077 AD. The Helios Space Station in lower Earth orbit.
Bob is on the deck of the patio, with a canvas and oil paints. He was painting the Earth, half of it was still covered in sunlight, the other half was not. The night side was covered in lights.
The station shakes for a moment. An alarm sounds.
“Bob, I need your help. There’s been another accident with Exordium containment. This one could be deadly.” said WERP.
Bob is frustrated, he’d just gotten this palette of colours right.
“I’m really busy WERP, can’t you just send one of your drones? I know you have hundreds of them.” said Bob, non chalantly.
“I have drones which can operate in the sealed pressurised environment and space drones. But unfortunately none are equipped for this specific problem. Please, Bob. Babe.” said WERP, desperately.
Bob was almost ready to give in, until that last word.
“What if I just stand here, and keep painting?” Bob asked, beginning to think that was what he was feeling he should do.
“This isn’t just a small breach. If you aren’t going to help, then please get to the escape shuttle. You can come down to Earth. Don’t you want to finally see the Earth?” WERP bargained with his creation.
“To be honest, father, no. The Earth is for people. I’m not a person. I’m an actor on a stage.” said Bob.
“You’re a flesh and blood human being. Please, I love you.” begged WERP. The station was beginning to shake now, the drop in internal pressure had cascaded through multiple levels. Bob noticed this and heads into the living room for a moment.
Bob walks up to Robert’s record player and collection of vinyls, flicking through the albums and stopping on a recording of Carmen. He pulls it out and it begins to play “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle”. Bob presses a button and the song plays throughout the whole house, he smiles and turns up the dial to full volume and then returns to his painting.
“You want me to be Robert? I’ll show you exactly how I see the deadly departed Robert Francisco. Famous actor. Lover of an AI god. Recovered alcoholic. Selfish. Cruel. Dramatic.” said Bob, as the opera singer playing the titular Carmen reached her higher notes in the background. Bob knew these songs well and timed his speech to the rhythm of the song.
“Please, you have less than a minute before…” said WERP.
“Before what?” asked Bob as he continued to paint, ignoring the sounds of the surrounding scaffolding beginning to buckle as the stations main internal frame had begun to bend from the stresses.
“I can’t lose you again.” said WERP, quietly.
“I. Am. Not. HIM!” shouted Bob. “I’m Bob.” he said, quietly to himself, continuing to paint with tears forming in his eyes.
A crack begins to form in the outer glass from the corner of the main viewing window.
“Get to the elevator!” shouted WERP. Bob looked through the interior of the house, at the open elevator that was still within reach if he ran now, and just smiled.
Ten seconds pass, and the crack had snapped the outer glass entirely. A new crack was forming on the inner glass now.
Twenty seconds pass, since WERP’s warning, and the crack had progressed into a scar through the center of the pane. Bob can sense the end coming and takes in a deep breath, counting down from ten and signing the painting with his name in the corner. The song from Carmen was just beginning to finish.
Thirty seconds pass. Bob draws an X under his name on the painting and mouths “I’m Bob” one last time. As the opening song of Carmen reaches its climax, the pressure of the air in the room blows the buckled glass into space. Ejecting Bob and the loose contents of the house.
700 kilometers away, aboard WERP’s flying castle, a shockwave of data floods the system. Psychologists and neurologists in monitoring stations sound the alarm, something catastrophic is happening to WERP.
In the center of the Atlantic ocean, a wormhole opened. Waves of intense solar radiation began to leak out, tendrils of fire ejected from the wormhole. It was connected to the sun. WERP’s flying castle begun flying towards it, intending to self immolate and send a kill code to its copies across the Earth.
Phoenix Day had begun.
The present. 2107 AD. An apartment in the Kingdom of Winthrom.
“Is WERP evil?” asked Andrew. “How could he do that if he’s meant to care for people?”.
“No, WERP’s not evil. Sometimes when we are in pain, we do things we don’t mean. Sometimes we hurt so much, some of that pain spills out onto the ones we love. Even when we try our hardest, it’s only human to makes mistakes.” said Geoffrey. It had taken him decades to reach this conclusion, and he was glad to share the wisdom of it with the next generation.
“Everyone makes mistakes, but he set fire to the planet Earth!” said Andrew.
“Everyone makes mistakes. WERP was no different from us there. As WERP’s creator I failed to teach it how to deal with its pain. The blindspot in our own designs was the same blindspot humanity has for itself, WERP was just holding up a mirror.” explained Geoffrey.
Andrew looks back at his grandpa, eyes fully glazed over and unsure about what that explanation meant, but he knew it was important.
“On Phoenix Day, a number of people were evacuated including myself, your dad and your grandma.” began Geoffrey.
“Lola was there? Why?” said Andrew.
“No, not Grace’s… your mom’s mom. Your dad’s mom. My…” said Geoffrey, drifting off before he could finish the sentence not ready to say late wife.
“I have two grandmas?” asked Andrew, excitedly, wondering where this other grandma he’d never met was. Geoffrey looked down at the ground, trying not to get emotional in front of his grandson, he takes in a deep breath and sips his tea.
“Can I have one too?” asked Andrew. Geoffrey glances at the boy, smiles and walks to the kitchen to fetch him a cup.
37 years ago. 2070 AD. Vancouver Community College. Tavern.
Geoffrey was sitting at the bar alone, he’d been frustrated that he couldn’t watch TV upstairs because of the AI being interviewed on-screen and came down to be around actual people.
“Can’t sleep again, Professor Weyun?” asked the evening bartender. She had a blonde bob hairstyle and a bit of make up on to hide her crows feet and the bags under her eyes. She regularly wore denim outfits to work, tonight it was a jeans jacket and pants.
Geoffrey thought hard for a moment, he liked this lady and didn’t want to offend her in his sour mood so he just said “I’ll sleep once I get a few drinks in. Whisky, neat, please.” he said.
“Single malt or blend?” asked the female bartender.
“Surprise me.” said Geoffrey.
She pulls a bottle down from the top shelf and pours it into a tumbler glass, and then herself one too.
“You look like you could use some company with this.” she says. Geoffrey looks at her carefully, was she hitting on him, he wondered. He’d seen her before and they’d exchanged looks, but plenty of people around the campus stared at him because of his reputation and fame as WERP’s creator.
“You know, I could. I really really could.” said Geoffrey, as he smiles. “And call me Geoffrey.”.
“Clementine” she replies, as they raise their drinks to clink their glasses and sip.
“Not bad, blended?” asked Geoffrey. She nodded.
“This is a student tavern at a community college. We don’t actually have any single malt behind the bar. I just wanted to sound smart cause you intimidate me, bud.” she said, opening up a little bit. Geoffrey smiles, she was hitting on him, he realised.
33 years ago. 2077 AD. Phoenix Day.
It’s a hectic scene at the Pentagon, Washington DC. Packed to the brim with military personnel in briefings, discussing the strategy for evacuation.
Kate O’Connor and Amanda Carlin are in a briefing with the president and Joint Chiefs of Staff talking about the wormhole to the sun in the center of the Atlantic.
They have hours before the deadly amount of heat and radiation begin to affect global weather patterns. The surrounding ocean had already begun to boil and the air surrounding was getting so hot pockets of air were flashing into flames.
“With the amount of thermal energy already transferred through the wormhole, we are expecting a global superstorm of unprecedented magnitude. Possibly an extinction level event.” said a meteorologist.
“Kate, I think it’s time you departed for the evacuation aircraft.” said President Jackson.
“With respect, ma’am, I’m staying right here. Amanda can go in my stead.” Kate declared.
“Miss O’Connor… Kate… you can’t give up your life for mine.” said Amanda.
“Amanda, I love you… but I’m not doing this to save your life. I’m staying behind to ensure the survival of as many people as I can.” said Kate.
“But…” said Amanda.
“That’s all.” said Kate, she held her hand up indicating she was done speaking. She had not used that one for a very long time, but felt it was important to be unapologetically herself on what was probably her last day on Earth.
The president smiled at Kate’s courage, she had also intended to go down with the ship today. The first gentleman was in another room at the Pentagon, waiting for her so they could be together in their final moments, if it came to that.
Hours later, somewhere above the Pacific Ocean.
As far as the eye can see are dozens of passenger aircraft all flying in the same direction, but not quite in formation. VIPs are being transported to the colony through the wormhole, the Earth is being evacuated.
In the barely visible distance, a supermassive cloud stretched out from outer space down to the ground, filled with unprecedented dangerous winds and extreme heat, the storm raged on. A couple of aircraft are pulled backwards violently by the gale force winds, vacuumed up into the vortex.
The winds inside the storm were so fast they had ripped skyscrapers open and the heat from the solar radiation had melted car frames into the ground in multiple cities. Across major populated areas, people were sheltering underground, some were lucky and that was enough to survive, but many weren’t so lucky.
Firey tornadoes of unprecedented magnitude had worn deep scars into the landscape, immolating everything in their path from buildings to forests to power lines. Countless people were dying by the minute.
Aboard one of the evacuation aircraft, Geoffrey is holding his wife Clementine’s hand, their four year old son Alan is sitting between them. They had been picked up by the Canadian Armed Forces and escorted onto this plane where they ran into some familiar faces including Amanda and May.
At the front of the fuselage, sat her Royal Princess Elizabeth of Windsor and her fiancee Prince Peter of Luxembourg. Phoenix Day had begun on their wedding day. They were in their cars on their way to the church to get married when they got re-routed to the airport for an emergency departure. The princess bride to be was still in her wedding dress.
May Jung-Lee and Amanda Carlin were seated together in the same aisle as Geoffrey and his family.
The present. 2107 AD. An apartment in the Kingdom of Winthrom.
“Phoenix Day isn’t just a holiday. It’s a day we remember the Earth. That’s why your dad calls me every Phoenix Day, to talk about our old home and what we left behind.” said Geoffrey. Andrew understood the significance of the holiday now.
“What about space ships? Could we return to Earth that way, one day?” asked Andrew, looking up at the stars outside his window.
“Maybe, but first we’d have to understand where we actually are in relation to the Earth. Astronomers are still figuring that one out. Even Nova doesn’t know.” said Geoffrey, smiling. He liked the mystery of just how far away from the origin they were, the fact that the stars themselves were unrecognisable felt profound, somehow.
“What was it like when you first came here?” asked Andrew.
“Life was hard at first, people did their best to stick together after Phoenix Day but the divisions from Earth came with us. We were so divided by WERP that even after May and WERP became Nova, the rift couldn’t be healed.” said Geoffrey.
“Everyone who took Nova’s side and wanted to use AI was exiled from the mainland and forbidden from returning for a long time. Those people, including my friend Amanda, became The Union.” Geoffrey explained.
“So why don’t we live there? Your friends are all in The Union? Why do we live in the Kingdom? Or Los Zaar where they have the other cool AI?” asked Andrew, referring to the smaller isolated copies of WERP that were used by the free peoples.
“I didn’t want to be responsible for any more destruction. It’s interesting you mention Los Zaar though. Before it was called Los Zaar, that was actually where I lived. Our old commune became an important place in the Los Zaar culture, being Alazaar’s former home.” said Geoffrey.
“Do you hate AI? Is that why we live here?” asked Andrew, feeling like he hadn’t been given a clean answer.
“No, I don’t hate AI, or technology. I still believe in the benefits it created. It’s just that for me personally, whenever I interacted with Nova in The Union, all I could remember was my mistakes and the young woman I’d failed.” Geoffrey says as he gets up, hoping to release some of the tension in his body from discussing all of this.
“Alazaar Escaara was a hero to every one of the free people, they named themselves after him, Los Zaar. For them it was a celebration, but for me even that name was a constant reminder of how I’d let down my friends. When your dad, Alan got sick and nearly died when we lived at sea, that sealed the deal for me and your grandma.” Geoffrey explained.
“So I joined the one group who was as far away from AI as possible, but could still provide a decent life for my family.” Geoffrey finished, as he walks up to the teapot and spots they’ve finished it together, he smiles.
“I’m glad you chose the kingdom. I like it here, all my friends are here.” said Andrew.
The grand dad looks at his sick grandson covered in red spots on his skin, feeling riddled with guilt that he wouldn’t be sick if they lived in the Union and could use the AI driven medical printer, but pushes it down and smiles at the boy and says “Me too”, then turns off the light and tells the boy goodnight.
Geoffrey closes the door and turns around to find Grace, in the hallway waiting for him.
“Did you get him to drink the tea?” she asks.
“Yes” Geoffrey says.
“Ever since we opened the restaurant he’s refused anything sweet and just stays silent while watching screens. Everyone is beginning to think he’s a weird kid, or might even be gay.” she jokes.
“That’s odd, he seemed like an ordinary kid to me and we actually spoke quite a bit.” Geoffrey said.
“That’s wonderful” Grace says, smiling. She was worried grandpa Geoff was getting a bit lonely since he was widowed.
A few days pass, and Andrew’s chickenpox clears up, he is completely healthy again. The young boy and and Geoffrey were getting ready to go out to the parents restaurant. They had eaten food from there all the time, but never dined in so grandpa suggested they go.
Geoffrey pulls out the parcel that had just been dropped off at the door that morning and pulls out a letter attached to the front.
“By decree of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth III, Every child shall be safe, healthy and comfortable in a cold winter. We grant this household the attached children’s snowsuit/s. For fitting, please contact the tailors listed on the back or get in touch to replace…” Geoffrey read aloud.
Geoffrey pulls the suit out of the parcel and wonders how they knew what size Andrew needed, but then noticed it was mostly a onesie that would fit anyone around his height.
Geoffrey hands Andrew the snow suit to put on. Andrew hops in through the big zipper in the middle and slides his arms and legs into it.
“It feels weird… I can’t put my arms down cause of the puffiness under my arms.” said Andrew.
Geoffrey looks at the boy awkwardly getting used to the outfit and smiles. He then remembers something and pulls out a Project Humanity badge from his pocket, that Kate had given him years ago, and sticks it on the velcro.
“That makes it a space suit now, officially.” Geoffrey says.
“Cool!” Andrew says and smiles as his grandpa zips it up.
The pair head outside the apartment complex and stop at the doors.
Andrew is astonished at the sight. The entire apartment complex was covered in a foot of snow and a small amount was freshly falling.
Geoffrey walks forward to a pile of snow by the footpath, rolls up a snowball and throws it his grandson. Andrew looks at him surprised and amused.
Geoffrey does the same thing again. Andrew quickly realises this is a game and scrambles to make his own snow ball and throw it back at his grandpa.
They throw the snow at each other for a few minutes while laughing before carrying on to the tram station.
As they walk down the footpath, they see kids sliding down a snow covered hill.
“What are they doing?” Andrew asks.
“They’re sledding.” Geoffrey says and laughs. Andrew had never heard that word before.
“Can we do that?” asks Andrew.
“Yeah sure. But we’ll go on the way back, we don’t want to get your butt dirty before we visit the restaurant.” Geoffrey says.
On the electric tram heading to the train station. The two are watching the view outside as it transits from the neighbourhood where they lived into central district of Arcadia.
“Can we visit The Union and meet Nova?” Andrew asks, thinking of other adventures he could go on with grandpa.
Geoffrey pushes down his feelings, looks at his grandson and then looks out the window. For a second, he mistakes the glare of the light for May’s face, smiling at him on the day they met.
“One day.” he says and smiles, hoping not to commit to being the one who goes on that particular journey.
Geoffrey and Andrew then exit the tram, cross the busy pedestrian sidewalk together and then visit the parents restaurant at the train station. The place is packed with people at the take away window, but one of the tables in the back is free so Geoffrey and Andrew sit down.
The parents are a bit put out to see them both here. Alan looks over to his son sitting with his father, smiles and walks over to greet them.
“You’re looking a lot better!” Alan says to Andrew, hand on the boys shoulder.
“Can we trouble you for some Earl Grey tea?” asked Geoffrey, looking at Alan.
“Sure, teapot for one coming up.” Alan says. Andrew pokes his grandpa, indicating he wants one too.
As Alan is already walking away, Geoffrey yells “Make that two!”. Alan looks back, realises his son had developed a new liking, and smiled.
Walking to the kitchen in the back, Alan drops off a plastic tub full of dirty dishes from the dining room and Grace dutifully begins to load the dishwasher.
“We are so busy. Did they have to come today? When we have the special on?” said Grace.
“It’s just great to see them both outside, talking to people.” Alan said, looking at his son and father through the small window into the dining room.
“You’re right.” she says, and stops for a moment to hug her husband before carrying on.
Alan walks up to the kettle, fills it up and presses the switch to begin boiling.
Thank you for reading the !
If you’d like to know more about the thinking that went into producing this story, check out Behind the Prologue: Writing About Systems.
Lore
Coming soon
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About
Langenium is an open source game project with the long term goal of producing an MMO in the browser.
Starting in 2012, the current build of Langenium is a culmination of over a decade of work.
Please enjoy this current version of the game!
Langenium
p.s. If you are a developer or interested in games development, visit Langenium on Github
Help
Gameplay
Bots and players use the same scanner and weapons subsystems for combat.
PC Controls
[W][A][S][D] to turn your aircraft and control acceleration.
[Shift] and [Spacebar] to control your aircrafts elevation.
On-screen controls
These controls are always visible and therefore usable using your mouse on PC and touch on mobile and other touchscreen devices.
The D-PAD in the bottom left can be used like a thumbstick to turn your aircraft and control acceleration.
The slider on the right controls elevation and the camera button can be used to peak around the scene.
The weapons console can be used to toggle auto attack and manually fire weapons if auto attack is off.
When weapons fire, the attack button shows the time remaining till the next attack is ready.
