“The Representative” – A Short Story (Part I)

“…and that’s everything there is to know about our race” I explained.

“If you want to see with your own eyes you’ll have to try for yourself.”

I watched as the crowd scanned, heads down at their charts. It was silent.

“You are not the ones we are looking for” boomed a voice from the ceiling.

My hands balled into fists.

How could that be? Everything was perfect.

“Are you sure? We’ve searched everywhere and your race is perfectly compatible with ours.”

“You are not a good fit. We do not agree.” the voice boomed again.

150 years of work down the drain….

Through my eyes, the entire human race was tuned in. A direct communication interface.

In a way, they can see and feel everything that I do.

Many years ago a transition occurred – our brains were uploaded & synced to a decentralized database.

The implications were huge – it enabled humanity to grow at an astounding rate.

Now, when one human learned something new, we all do.

Long ago we transitioned from individual beings to a single collective conscious. Our minds  joined, and our experiences shared.

All the love, happiness and joy experienced by each human was mirrored to every other human simultaneously.

The downside was that every horrible, miserable, and reprehensible act came right along with it.

This was a massive turning point in our history. 

Most early minds were driven to madness. They couldn’t handle the cognitive dissonance.

Lucky for them, a solution to their madness was found pretty quickly.

Virtual Reality is how the majority coped with this change. VR makes everything okay.

Most entities today exist in some type virtual reality – always with their friends, doing what they want, where they want, when they want.

A significant portion of humanity gave up on struggles of reality a long time ago. You can’t blame them though, life in VR is perfect.

A few of us still believe in reality.

We found a way to embrace the darkness that others are constantly running from.

I guess that’s the reason why I’m standing in front of this crowd today.

My role is known as the representative.

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At a pivotal time in human history I was born. Right at the beginning of the technological revolution.

At my 150th birthday I was optimistic. At 200 it was confirmed I could not die.

It’s now my 957th birthday and with the way we’re advancing it’s likely I’ll live outlive even our own universe.

Not just me, but everyone else too.

Somewhere in our history a scientist reverse engineered how the human brain worked.

In its most basic sense, the human brain was simply a database. A way to store information.

We learned that if you record all the sensory inputs coming into a brain from birth, and store them. Should anything happen, you can simply restore the database and your conscious would remain intact as long as the information & experience structure remains the same.

A little while later, a computer programmer built a module called ‘the phoenix’ which stored automatic backups of each of our brains sensory information into the cloud. If for any reason your original copy goes offline, ‘the phoenix’ would automatically restore a new instance of your conscious. 

Humanity has changed a lot since then.

In general, humans aren’t really made of ‘cells’ or ‘meat’ anymore. That was the old way of storing information.

Today, most humans live ‘in the wire’, with no physical body to speak of.

Surrogate mechanical bodies are available for those that prefer the physical world, but most things can be accomplished through the wire.

When you live on the wire, you don’t need to eat, sleep or breath – you don’t need  a home, or a job, or money. It’s pretty cool.

To date we’ve assimilated thousands of earth species into our collective conscious.

It has also been confirmed that there exists a race much more advanced than humanity, but they wont communicate with us – they simply observe.

They treat us like we treat bacteria.

We’d like to communicate with these beings, but we’re not quite advanced enough yet. We need to learn more.

By constantly expanding our database of experiences and perceptions, we hope to achieve their level of consciousness.

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The benefits for both side are obvious – gaining a range of experiences completely foreign to the other.

“No.” said the voice from the walls.

The one sitting closest to me began intensely scanning his documents, knocking over the mountain of awards decorating his desk as he stood up.

“Incorrect.“ he sputtered.

“They are a suitable match!” he affirmed, hobbling towards me.

“Tell me, have you executed a merger like this before?”

Interesting question.

“Yes, with all the plants & animals that exist on earth. Our ancestors got lonely and bored, so they augmented the existing life on earth with intelligence.”

“We gave our partner species the ability to speak, think, & contemplate their own existence.”

“Eventually, we figured out how to merge their minds with ours. Now, we’re all one big happy family. Those plants & animals are now a part of humanity – infact, they’re as much ‘human’ as any other entity living on the wire.”

“That said, your race is the first we’ve encountered outside our own planet.”

“Our proposition is simple and fair – we will give you the technology connect all the minds of your species.”

“In exchange, we ask that your collective conscious be joined with ours.”

The room started to buzz with whispers, each group talking passionately amongst themselves.

In a sudden flash, two figures joined the back of the room.

A massive beast – 2,000 feet tall, with drool pouring from its mouth like a swamp filled waterfall.

The other was most definitely a mechanical surrogate, an older model, but definitely man-made.

There’s no record of another human surrogate anywhere near here… who could this be?

A vote was initiated across the wire to decide how to proceed.

Do I wait & see who or what the hell is going on, or do I kill that thing instantly?

A green light flashes on the arm of my surrogate. The wire has reached a decision.

Finally, a little bit of excitement around here…

Part II (Coming Soon…)

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