All-Natural

“Dent! Hurry your Ass!”

Barked the commander in her usual gritty, greasy, dive bar tone.

It always left me feeling like she could have led a biker gang on Old Earth,

rather than our sorry bunch.

14 soldiers, if you could call us that. Geared up head to toe in weapons and gadgets,

looking like post-apocalyptic video game warriors.

“But aren’t we?” I thought to myself.

Without the face scars and rugged callouses,

or pupils with the opaque blackness of taken lives.

Currency is obsolete and we need only what we want or think in order to have and do.

The only life plan beyond our 20’s was to become the best thing there was to be,

Holy Ascending Warriors.

Something nags at my suspicion,

something familiar and obvious in sillouette but too dim to see.

“Dent! Front and Center!” Yelled the commander.

I was in the back.

Eyes down, looking at the heart-shaped locket I’d thought would be too vulnerable to bring as my one designated item from home planet.

It was an impulsive grab, but what was inside of it meant more to me than the duty, the glory, or the chance to ascend.

Not that life was bad for us now.

I mean, I’ve had 29 years of unlimited food, encouragement towards free-love, entertainment, healthcare and the Holy Government that provides everything we’ve ever needed.

Though, we’ve been at war for centuries, with a relentless enemy.

One of our own creation.

The product of a toxicity we’ve learned began in our minds.

This is why we are not to know anything of the foe we face.

We are not to poison our minds with obsessions, but to become our true selves.

We have AI for development of weaponry advances and never once have they failed to prepare a squadron adequately.

With the help of our Holy Government and the Ascended Warriors of each generation, we’ve never failed to receive good news about the battles.

Unfortunately, with the distance it took to travel to enemy lines, the journey was a one way trip.

This is our price for living in perfect peace and safety.

So long as we follow the guidance of our Holy Government,

then one day, before 30 we would all get the chance to ascend.

So long as we continually pass our wellness exams we were always eligible and then selected at random.

The VR simulations and physical training, extensive education in fields of personal interest, wellness therapy and perfectly formulated diet plans.

All of our times’ efforts could finally be given meaning, beyond carnal pleasure and experience.

Harvests are easily sourced from New Earths undisturbed and hyper-nutritious soil.

It’s as if the ground is eager feed us with all of its greatest hospitality, sprouting crops sometimes in less time than it takes to freeze ice.

With the advantages for vegetation so readily available, the oxygen-dense ecosystem was much like a tropical rainforest, but with no wildlife.

“For such a perfectly sustainable environment why were we the only animals here?” I’d ponder.

Without the sounds of our own festivities most of nature was very quiet.

Tranquil, but always lacking, like the emptiness of a house with too many rooms.

I heard of such things. The history logs were full of stories about excessiveness and needless suffering.

Since our forefathers dropped the Nukes on Old Earth and we had to move to New Earth, life became the opposite of what the past has taught us about our ancestors.

“Phoenix from the ashes!” We would all sing to conclude our global anthem.

Love and connection come with no suffering or commitment and thanks to advances in genetic science, we now have a 100% pregnancy success rate. Also, the time it takes to carry a child is a 3rd of what it used to be.

Yes that’s right.

Intercourse means a gurenteeed child every single time.

Three months later,

they’re a living and breathing member of society.

When our colonists made the journey the distance was vast and numbers were small.

Natural romantic connections amongst the survivors were few.

Successful conceptions, even fewer.

Extreme measures were taken to ensure All-Natural procreation was sufficient enough for our continuation.

Of course, with all the warriors it takes to occupy territories lighthgears away, our immense child population would be difficult to look after without government issued AI programs.

The optimal population size has always been maintained through a solid foundation of trust between human and machine.

At this point we’re taught to believe they are one and the same,

hard and soft Mechanics.

Uploaded AI versions of our parents handle All-Natural human rearing,

with perfect execution and consistency that soft mechanics could never statistically compete with.

“Is their purpose just… us?” I wondered, while losing myself in the still surface of my own eyes.

Head low and forward,

but gazing inward.

“Pssst…. What’s in the locket?” Whispered Stephens.

Comic relief, without the relief is what we called him.

“Dunno, never opened it.” I replied.

My great-grandmother passed it down, apparently it went with her when she ascended and made it back somehow.

My natural father came by one time while I was still in the stage of nurture.

I remember being 6 or 7 and not being able to tell the visual difference between him and my government issued AI father.

Interactive facial and voice software made their personalities identical.

The smell though…

It was hard to forget how vast the difference was.

I never forgot that one day he came to see me and gave me the locket.

It was like the scent reached out to meet me before he did, then stayed long after to keep me the company I hadn’t noticed I was missing;

coming with a slide show of images in my mind,

too fast to narrate.

Warriors in my squandron carried small pieces of crystal or stone taken from ocean floors or mountain peaks.

They were tokens from their furthest explorations on New Earth,

proof they were fit for ascension.

Me though, I had what looked like a piece of history or something Old Earthians would have put in an antique shop.

“Did I say that right?”

“Antique…” As I practice my pronunciation.

Some words are now Old Earth talk,

but luckily most information was digitalized.

With so many experiences lost, I had none to match with the word Antique.

No smell to pull images from my mind.

This is what happened for me when I looked at the worn smooth metal ridges of the locket and it’s dirtied crevices.

It’s crusted hinges and barely visible shine from never being polished made it more of what it already was for me;

My mystery.

Unopened is how I left it,

simply because I always had.

It was My Secret.

My smell to look forward to.

Someday…

It found it’s way back onto the ship from the voyage and into the unloading dock.

Constant shipments of old school battle equipment arrive from past victories.

Discarded weapons and armour get used and recycled for metal scraps.

It was stuck to a magnetic trash collector. My father found it one day and passed it on to me before he ascended.

“Why not now? C’mon Dent… Let’s take a peak…What’s the big deal?”

Said Stephens with a light jest that I knew would be the precursor to a running-joke anytime soon.

“I plead the 5th.” I said.

“Oh there you go with the Old Earthian talk … All that history you learned and you haven’t even made a Dent!” Retorted Stephens.

Warriors within earshot erupt in restrained snickering.

“Dent!” Yelled the commander. “Something to share with the squad?Voyage ceremony at 0800, we ship out in less than a cycle and you find somthing to be funny maggots!?”

“No commander! Sorry commander!” We all respond in a pathetic attempt at unison.

We hadn’t been trained as a squad.

Individually we were all experts at whatever we had interest in,

but together we may as well have all won a contest and met this week.

This part doesn’t make sense.

why all the effort, tech, science and organization?

Just to trust the end result to a mismatched and self proclaimed A-Team.

We’ve all been optimistic about this step our whole lives,

why now does it feel like something so silly and obvious is escaping my notice.

I remember learning in my personal studies that crystal formations are grouped together, much like spieces of plant or the animals of Old Earth.

One thing stuck with me. I could never get over how the crystals were documented to have made instantaneous group-minded changes to evolve upon discovering a new way to form, grow and survive.

Never the same again, wherever they are located.

Without ever even meeting one another they communicate perfectly.

“They aren’t at war with their own creations.” Crossed my mind.

To be connected in such a way.

How does it feel to be a part of something so seamless?

Watching the other warriors nervously fondling and clutching their crystals and amulets of different types made me wonder if we were all searching for that same sense of importance and belonging.

“BOOM!”

The giant hanger door shuts behind our squad as we make our way into the loading dock to say our final goodbyes before the morning departure.

Would I leave something for any of my children like my father had for me?

What would I leave?

Not the locket…

It was a gift to me.

It felt that way, so I wanted to keep it.

Besides, how would I choose one out of the many kids to prioritize.

It’s Astonishing I had made it this far without looking inside.

My own commitment to the neglect of potentially valuable information scared me.

Is Ignorance bliss?

No.

More like a form of control.

The one thing in my whole existence that isn’t laid out and certain. I get to choose.

But what if I die?

What if I ascend and physical objects or memories become trivial.

Should I look now before it’s too late?

I’ve made it to 29. The longest anyone has or would ever want to remain here on New Earth.

I mean what If I we only are capable of living to 30? This could be my last chance to know, to smell, to see.

“Lighten up Dent!” Prodded Stephens as he clapped his hand on my shoulder.

The weight of his arm catches me by surprise and my fingers loose their delicate grasp.

The locket flies from my hands and hits the hard concrete floor,

the clasp cracks and splits through decades worth of corrosion.

Laying there, still spinning in slow circles,

eventually it comes to a halt.

The untouched silver interior glistens around the edges of what looks like an old photo.

One taken on a celluar phones’ camera or maybe even a Nikon like the Old Earthians used to carry around and print on paper.

It was very small but as I lean down to pick it up the image became much more clear.

A ship.

Old, but much like the war vessels we send out on regular intervals.

Coming and going always.

The closer I look,

I notice that there’s writing on the outside of the ship.

Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen a war ship up close.

AI takes care of all the hard labor, like cleaning and updating the voyagers.

Strange, this was my first time seeing the outside of one.

I had to really look close to make out what the letters said,

but there was no mistake.

“ALL-NATURAL NEW EARTHIAN.”

The locket falls from my limp hands.

Sound leaves my body.

In that one instant,

evolution takes place.

What I need to do is crystal-clear.

Instantaneously,

everything has changed.

Never the same again.