Humanity At Peace

I sat alone in my room for the first time in several months. I had been given a pass to avoid working at my computer station after becoming a live-alone again, the room feels darker somehow despite the digital walls giving me a photogenic sunny day, even the air vents had been wafting a soft scent of what I assume are the outdoors. Not like anyone remembers what those really are any more I suppose, I certainly never did since as a thinker I was never allowed outside the walls of the city. Well to be fair, I've never really been outside of my room as a thinker. Everything I need is here.

History says after all that humanity knew it couldn't live together in peaceful harmony for very long Wars, plagues, famine and even accidental deaths. But one thing we all knew from history courses, was that humans couldn't survive together for very long. Like Porcupines, whatever those are. Machines now regulated everything, Job Placement at our terminals, the food that we would eat, even entertainment, once you were at thirty cycles you were expected to meet with another human until a pregnancy happened, but I think the limit of people living together was no longer than a year. I assume for fear the two humans might kill one another.

It was the past thinkers that built this city, keeping everyone confined within a room in the city with the help of Builders. I've never seen one, but I heard they live outside the city. Granted the only reason I know of them is from learning. Which leads me to my feelings of gloom and sadness.

Part of my gloom I'm certain is because I'm alone, despite what I was taught growing up in the school rooms and later the academy, Humans don't have attachments, at least not healthy ones. We're supposed to stay away from each other, thus the reason for the computer network and robots helping to guide us and keep us safe.

we have everything need within the room, we don't need much after all. I have a dresser for my uniforms, my workstation computer, and my bed. On occasion, I even get a temporary table for when my meals arrive. I was alone before they came, and now that they are gone back to their original living quarters, my thirty cycles came and I lived with another human for what felt like Forever, at first, we got in each other's way. Yet here I am, laying on my back on my bed staring up at an artificial noonday sky wondering why I feel so, so... morose? After they are declared with child. Maybe I am a defective human, one that feels attachments? Or maybe it was the routine I was missing without the other person sharing my room.

Now they are with child.

Once that happens the computer network reassigns the one with child, and from there once the child is weaned off their parent for the nourishment they need, and then they are sent away from the parent to learn in the school and depending on their placement in the school, become welcomed into the Academy as a Thinker or a Builder.

All perfectly normal, has been as long as I've known it.

But here I was, missing the companionship of another human, I just felt so alone. Like there's no point in even getting back to work even tomorrow, or the day after that.

I just wish there was something to help me feel better, I was only thirty cycles and had ten left before my end by the systems so that I wouldn't be a burden to humanity.

It was during this moment I noticed something under my sheets, a necklace worn by my companion, it sparkled so nicely in the artificial sunlight, I wasn't sure about its heart-shaped pattern before, but now as I looked at it and thinking back to when they had worn it here, the talks we had, games that we played and the joy we took from being with each other. It made me feel...less alone. I wondered how long before the system would know it was missing from them and before I would be forced to return it should they ask for it.

But I knew I would treasure it for as long as I could, it was my proof that I had a connection with another human, and that filled me with a strange hope, that I might be able to keep it until my death day. In just ten cycles I would die, but here was this sparkling necklace that seemed to declare to me, so long as I had it, I wouldn't die alone.

As a human, we didn't or shouldn't form attachments. But right now, I didn't care about that. All I wanted was for the days to tick by with me and my memories with them. Thankful that the past Thinkers had designed the system to keep when humans were together with a time limit so that we wouldn't be violent with one another. I had nothing but happy memories, and they'd be the only memories I'd have of another human face to face. A smile came to my face even as I heard my lunch meal arrive at the door, I wasn't hungry, but I would be required to eat if I didn't want a visit from security or a medical bot.

Perhaps these days will be hard, but like other humans I will move on.

Just like my ancestors did.