Heaven is in Your Mind

Chapter 1:

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But then again, the dead don’t scream. If they did, they’d likely have much to say. About the life they lived, the state of the world, regrets and things they wish they could’ve done, especially the souls gone too soon. It took Jaret longer than he had anticipated to grasp the suddenness of Clay’s death. At only 33, his death was so quick. There was no time to consider a goodbye was imminent, much less say the actual goodbye. They had been best friends since they were able to speak as toddlers, growing up in General Population. They were forever promising each other that their dreams would take them far away from this system that had already decided their destinies as nameless bodies. They wanted to change the world and break the system that broke them and the generations before them. But now that plan was shattered and Jaret had no idea how he could even get close to those dreams without the person that had inspired him most to live. The reality was survive or don’t survive. The concept of “thrive” no longer existed, unless you came from generational wealth. It was 2099 and the opportunities so coveted by humanity of rising above and transcending circumstances were nothing but fantasies and stories told to children not yet tainted by the harshness of this world.

Jaret stood listening to Clay’s mother, Nettie, as she spoke at Clay’s funeral. Free flowing tears gathered on the edge of his bright green eyes and ran down his cheeks like condensation on a glass.

“I…..never……I never thought this day would come. My boy…..My sweet boy. He was so full of life and hope. And now he’s….just gone. I wish I could say I was a stranger to this feeling,” Nettie said, her voice shaking with grief and tension.

“When Clay’s dad passed, we knew it was coming. But it still broke me. I don’t care how many people are on this planet and how often we see our loved ones pass right before our eyes. Knowing they’ve left us makes it…..hard to keep going. And that’s just the thing about grief, isn’t it? It takes a piece of you because what you lost WAS a piece of you. And you have to try and find your way back to the person you were before that piece of you existed? It seems an impossible quest. There will always be dead ends waiting for you because there’s no world, no altered reality in which you’ll forget that piece. And I don’t want to. Ever." Her voice began to thicken. Nettie was angry, rightfully so, in front of this intimate crowd of friends and community members here to support and carry her through this dark time.

“There was someone very special in Clay’s life and I consider him a second son. Jaret….would you do the honor and say the final words?”

Jaret wasn’t expecting to give a speech and public speaking wasn’t his favorite thing. But he loved Clay and thought it only ceremonial to be able to say the final words before Clay’s body was taken. He quickly wiped the tears from his face and approached the front of the crowd where Clay’s coffin sat open, guarded by two armed sentries with SLATE written across their chests, one on each side of the coffin. As he reached the front, he stood facing Clay’s coffin, frozen in time and disbelief. Their whole friendship flashed before his eyes. The games they would play in the streets as kids, running through alleyways escaping SLATE drones, going to have their Cybernets installed together, and the final day when he and Clay were walking to Nettie’s for dinner when Clay instantly and lifelessly collapsed mid-sentence, never waking up. A few moments staring at Clay felt like a lifetime.

Nettie’s voice gently broke the silence. “Jaret? Are you with us?”

Jaret quickly turned around, forgetting he was standing in front of a funeral crowd. He wiped his eyes once more and began to speak.

“Uh…..ha…..sorry. I’m not great with crowds, so forgive me. I’ve known Clay pretty much my whole life. He was……one of a kind. I always thought that if one of us passed young, it would be me. He was the strongest and smartest person I knew. A rebel, a bit too much sometimes,” gently laughing through a clenched jaw.

“I’ve been trying to make sense of all of this. There’s been a lot of unanswered whys and hows and I’m sad to say that I think they’ll always be unanswered…..but if I know anything….” tears began to swell and a lump formed in his throat.

He cleared his throat and said, “it’s that we were all lucky to know Clay…..So, so lucky.”

He wiped his face once more and turned to face the coffin. Around Jaret’s neck was a necklace with a small metal charm in the shape of an infinity symbol. He slowly took the necklace off and went to put it around Clay’s neck. As he reached into the coffin, one of the sentries grabbed his hand and said coldly;

“NO ADDITIONAL MATERIALS PERMITTED IN THE VEHICLE.”

Jaret looked up and began to plead;

“This necklace was his, I swear. I took it from him when he passed. Please, please let him be buried with it. It’s all he has left.”

The sentry stood frozen there for a moment. He and Jaret stared back at each other until eventually the sentry broke focus and Jaret was permitted to place the necklace around Clay’s neck.

A final moment passed and Jaret quietly whispered “See you in the next one.”

The sentries shut the coffin and walked away as the coffin hovered off the ground and followed behind them.

Nettie slowly approached Jaret and put her hand on his shoulder.

“We have to look out for each other now,” She said softly.

Jaret turned to look at Nettie and wrapped his arms around her and said, “I’ve always, and I mean always, got you,” and gently kissed her forehead.

From where they were standing, you could hear a handful of other funerals happening. Murmurs of heartfelt speeches, shouts from family members unable to touch their loved ones in the coffins, the sound of coffins being shut and hovering behind stomping sentries. Jaret and Nettie turned to walk towards Nettie’s home, pushing through crowded streets and walkways.

“This city is in ruins. I feel like I can barely breathe. It’s absolutely overflowing with people,” Nettie said full of irritation.

And she was right. The global population had reached nearly 13 billion people, a number no expert on earth could’ve predicted. The increase in birthrate was gradual and almost unnoticed. Who knew that a global pandemic would be the catalyst for such global collapse? Stay at home orders gave people what felt like endless amounts of time. Loneliness crept in like a predator on the hunt and humans filled their voids. Some with substances, others with families, and who was to say which was more destructive? One new generation born into a pandemic turned into 4 new generations over the span of 70 years. The birthrate became dramatically higher than the death rate until about 2090 when the entirety of society bottlenecked and exploded.

The thing with overpopulation is that with each new human born, a tiny crack is made in the foundation of human life. It’s another mouth to feed, another body to heal, and eventually another adult needing to make a living to hopefully survive in a world actively collapsing. Even in the 2020’s, the world had it’s sights set on technological advancement over the well being of it’s people. One by one, companies and corporations began replacing workers entirely with robotics and AI. Small businesses and entrepreneurs were an endangered species, and by 2080, there were none. A mega corporation, SLATE, had essentially swallowed the world. It bought up everything, from land to other major corporations, even to the money-hungry minds of governments across the globe, and for the people, this was a double edged sword.

SLATE, or Society Linked Across Technological Eternity, offered next to magical advancements in the integration of everyday technology, with some of the tech even becoming part of the human body. The most impressive being the cybernet. The cybernet truly changed everything. It was the internet inside the head of a human being. Vast, unfathomable, and more power than could ever be generated by a desktop or laptop computer. SLATE harnessed the electrical output of the brain, placing a layer of nanotechnology between the skull and the brain, which was outfitted with electromagnetic receivers that would link to servers and satellites, giving instantaneous and near-endless access to the internet. Even more impressive, SLATE made this a virtually free service to anyone who wanted it. All you had to do was sit through the procedure, which most reported was quick but excruciatingly painful, and allow your location and usage data to be used and owned by SLATE itself. The majority agreed that it was a small price to pay for such a payoff. With the simple blink of an eye, a browser would appear for you and only you in front of you, which also directly linked you to any other human on the planet who also had a cybernet installed.

Some believed that SLATE’s introduction of this tech was a distraction from the fact that they had essentially tanked the job market and left nearly 60% of the entire global population without jobs or survivable income. And since SLATE had infiltrated governments across the world, it was ultimately them that decided the fate of the people. They made strides in buying up property everywhere and were able to offer cheaper rent than the people had been paying previously, but ultimately it wasn’t enough. The foundation was crumbling too quickly and essential resources were becoming more and more scarce. Only so much food could be produced and only so much fresh water existed and these were the basic essentials of humanity. People began to starve, the average lifespan began to drop and it seemed that only those who sold their souls to work for SLATE were protected. Everyone else worldwide was offered free space to live on the continent of North America in an area named General Population, or GP. If you did not work for SLATE, you lived here. If you did, you had much more freedom and frankly, much more money to decide where it is you wanted to settle. Some were given location based assignments and others worked from home on their own cybernets that were completely separate from the GP cybernets.

People understood what was happening. They felt the pains of hunger and the rising anxiety of knowing they were being watched and recorded in every move they made, even any thought or desire they had. The more famine grew, the more tensions rose. Since the cybernet was introduced, there was a growing addiction and dependence on it from the General Population. It was a marvel. It kept them distracted from the reality that they were ultimately relying completely on a corporation to allow them to survive. They could endlessly surf the internet, stream or listen to whatever they wanted, and engage digitally in a social format with other GP residents with a cybernet. On the cybernet, they could live the life they should’ve been living in reality. They didn’t work because they couldn’t work. There were no jobs. So they spent their days being subliminally encouraged to use their cybernets to do absolutely everything. Through the cybernet, GP citizens were given times and locations weekly on where to pick up food. They could submit maintenance requests and requests for new clothing or basic household items, though there was no guarantee they’d be answered. Eventually, the food came less and less. Notifications to pick up your weekly supply became every 2 weeks and soon shifted to every month. Food would need to be stretched very thin and each household received the same amount. If you were the only one in your household, you were generally alright. If you were a family with a spouse and children, it was almost certain there would be a hunger or dehydration death in the family. Offering food to struggling families was highly discouraged and was considered a criminal offense and active betrayal of the systems SLATE had implemented.

In addition to hunger/dehydration deaths, there was a mass influx of cybernet deaths. They were 100% without explanation and completely non-compensated due to a clever anti-liability clause in the contract for the implant. People would just drop dead and sentries would come to place them in a titanium coffin and give the family a brief moment to gather and say goodbye.

Jaret and Clay knew the risks of getting the implants. Even though it was their choice to receive the implant, they both felt the pressure from SLATE to receive it, in the form of promises that life would get better. Having the implant gave them access to the food supply and they were both old enough to live alone so Nettie encouraged them both to get it for survival’s sake. They found the cybernet sustainable enough, until the day Clay passed.

It was mutually their greatest fear to die suddenly. Not only for the sadness it would cause their loved ones and the fact that they’d be living without each other for some period of time, but also because of the forced participation in Project Heaven, which was SLATE’s latest creation. The increase of death rate ultimately meant that the GP was being overrun by bodies that couldn’t be buried due to having no spare land for burials. Nearly 8 billion people packed into old North America. While SLATE was dedicated to technological advancement on Earth, it was looking to the stars as well for the next steps in humanity. The goal was of course to colonize other planets, even though safe and accessible space travel for billions of people was not an option. Telescopes and satellites soaring through space had located a number of habitable exoplanets over the last 80 years. They were named paradise planets.

Jaret stood on the crowded street, lost in a trance as an ad popped up on his cybernet, an ad that played what felt like a thousand times a day.

“Project Heaven!” an overly animated voice exclaimed. Visuals of titanium coffins in rows landing on a lush green planet played across the hologram screen.

“There truly is no place like Proxima Centauri b. You thought Earth was paradise? This planet is twice as big, meaning more terrain for the human race to reclaim it’s former glory! And the best part? Your loved ones will be there waiting for you, once we get there of course,” the voice said with a devilish chuckle.

There had been promises made by SLATE about expeditions to colonize Proxima Centauri b. Promises that ships would take humanity to the planet to reimagine what SLATE believed society should be, a society that could weather any storm.

“With special GPS technology, you can watch as your loved ones land on Proxima. Know that they arrived safe and sound to the paradise of tomorrow.”

“Project Heaven……because Heaven is in your mind.”

The ad ended and the hologram disappeared. Jaret was always disgusted by the ad when it played. It was nothing but bizarre to him and a sick way to give people hope that there was a way off this hellscape, especially now since Clay had become Project Heaven’s latest victim. When Clay was alive, he and Jaret had a running, very dark, joke that Project Heaven was a scam. They knew how big Earth was. There was truly no more land for people to be buried? SLATE needed every other piece of land outside of North America for research and development? They didn’t buy it, especially Jaret. Now that Clay had passed, he had an even more invested interest in the inner workings of Project Heaven. How could billions of titanium coffins be made to ship off endless bodies to this paradise planet, but there weren’t enough resources to make sure the people actually living survived well? How were they able to film and record such spotless footage of the coffins landing on the paradise planet? None of it checked out and it seemed some days that he was the only one left that questioned SLATE’s motives. Not only their motives, but their technological ability to actually see humanity into its inevitable future. SLATE was supposedly all powerful, but Jaret refused to believe that, looking around at the billions of souls living without the bare essentials, dropping dead every day from starvation and dehydration. The reality was that SLATE was either not actually all powerful, or even worse. That SLATE was not all good. Either way, Jaret had to figure it out. He had to know whether or not Project Heaven was legitimate. After Clay passed, he formulated an idea that was incredibly full of risks, but if successful, would expose SLATE and hopefully inspire the people into a revolution to reclaim the world that was equally theirs.

In their spare time, Jaret and Clay loved tinkering with technology. Taking things apart and examining their inner workings, making modifications and programming the tech for new purposes. Together, they managed to make a creation of their own that could be integrated into their cybernets without being caught by SLATE. They constructed 2 tracking devices that they each wore so that no matter what happened, they could find each other. They built them in the shape of infinity symbols that they wore as necklaces, based on the idea that nothing ever ends. They believed their friendship would never end and no matter where their souls went, they’d find each other. Neither of them were religious, but they believed in the energy of all things. Some chose to define it with archetypes and beliefs and laws, but they just chose to simply respect it and do their best to always stay in the flow of all things.

When Clay collapsed, Jaret immediately removed the tracker from his body, because the second SLATE shows up, they strip the body of all possessions, leaving them in a crumpled pile on the ground. The body goes into the coffin and a notification is sent to all relatives via cybernet of where and when a scheduled time for closure and “proper” funeral service is allotted. Jaret knew he had to get the tracker in the coffin somehow. The sentries were particularly watchful and he knew the risks. But the risks meant nothing if he never felt the peace of mind knowing Clay’s body actually ended up on a someday reachable paradise. He thought about just dropping the necklace into the coffin, but thought the desperation of allowing Clay to have a sentimental charm as he’s buried would somehow break through the stoic nature of the sentries. If he were caught dropping it in, he feared it would be detected as an illegal act, causing further issues for Clay’s family, so he went the grief stricken route. The sentries were quick to settle things and avoid public conflict, so he was almost certain they’d allow it if he pleaded desperately enough.

Jaret quickly made his way back to his apartment, trying not let the anticipation of the trackers final destination spike his heart rate. Typically the coffins are sent off within 24 hours of the funeral. It was a quick turn around time, but SLATE had no choice because of the overwhelming numbers of bodies needing to reach paradise. He sat at his dining room table staring into his cybernet hologram on a virtual map of the tracker blinking with a countdown clock in the bottom left side of his screen, signaling the departure time of Clay’s coffin. Anyone attending the funeral is offered access to the tracking, but only Jaret and, of course, Nettie chose to have it. Hours passed as he sat there watching the cybernet screen until he finally decided to climb into bed, almost instantly falling into deep sleep as his head hit the pillow.

He was exhausted. It had been an incredibly difficult 48 hours and his mind was swirling with thoughts. All he wanted was to rest peacefully. He needed to, but the thought of Clay’s lifeless body on the ground was a persisting nightmare that kept him tossing and turning through the night. It was a visual he couldn’t shake no matter how deep his sleep got. Right as the thoughts finally began to settle, he was jolted awake by a robotic voice counting down from 10.

“10….9…..8……7……”

This was it. Clay’s ride on the Project Heaven express, or wherever he was actually going.

“6…..5……4……3……”

Jaret’s heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest. He couldn’t stop visualizing Clay’s lifeless body shoved into that small coffin, hurling through space to it’s final destination on a planet he wasn’t even sure he’d ever see.

“2…..1…….Next stop: Paradise!”

Digital fireworks shot across the cybernet screen.

“Twisted,” Jaret said out loud, shocked at the dystopian choice for SLATE to make this departure such a cliche celebration.

What once was a countdown to departure in the bottom left of the hologram screen, turned into a countdown to arrival when the coffin would self land on the planet, with information of the row and exact location the coffin could be found when Proxima Centauri b was finally colonized.

“4.22 years” was listed on the countdown. He quickly realized that 4.22 years meant that the coffin would be traveling at the speed of light, a technological feat he didn’t even know was possible, even though he knew the secrets of SLATE ran deep. And what an incredibly strange notification to have on your cybernet, building anticipation over the course of 4 years hoping your loved one’s coffin lands safely on the planet. You could click the countdown and a galactic map would pop up showing real time movement of the coffin and it’s programmed trajectory. Jaret could place this map as well as the infinity symbol tracking map, the one he placed on Clay, side by side and what he found was an unbelievable confirmation. Completely different trajectories. Completely different directions and arrival times. The SLATE tracker said 4 years while his personal tracker said 4 minutes.

“I knew it! I KNEW Project Heaven was a scam! They’re sending him to…..” he said as he took a moment to calculate the trajectory of the infinity map.

“No…..fucking….way.” Jaret’s jaw dropped as he swallowed and said in complete shock and disbelief,

“………the coffins are landing on Mars.”