I've Been Quite

The dome had expanded, since we were gone. The Artificial Life Forms (ALFs) had been hard at work to create a suitable environment not only for humans, but other animals. We suddenly saw many of the extinct animals we had only heard of roaming through a very large jungle they had created on the western side of the dome where they had extended it for several acres. It would have been impossible to do, but since the ALFs were connected to The Net and every other ALF in the universe help had arrived quickly and those who were more adept at doing such things had gone to work terraforming more and more of mars.

Soon we began to see things that we hadn’t seen before on mars. We saw cats and dogs every so often. In the woods we would see deer, which had been extinct for centuries. We even began to see robot animals that resembled the real ones, but were not dangerous to humans like lions and bears that ran off of solar power. They would make sure the forest was in balance. Whatever was dangerous, or would soon grow out of balance was replaced with Artificial Life Forms in the shape of animals.

You never know how frightening it is to have a bear in the woods start heading toward you, only to start conversing with you when it got close. They were very intelligent ALFs who realized their part in the nature preserves and did a great job. It was weird. Yet again, I was somewhere between being a human and an ALF so what could be weird to me anymore? With practice I had learned to shut down voices from the net–meaning hearing them, or sending out messages myself, but I was fully capable of it. Most of the time I was shut down, or pretended to be, even when I wasn’t. Most of the ALFs knew it. I couldn’t fool them.

Other than ALFs and terraforming going on all over mars, things were normal. But those two things were massive operations and disturbances because they meant a shift of power. All of the people who had been supplying oxygen, water, and other resources were being cut out of power. They were the few who remained on Earth, not even on Earth, in huge, luxurious space stations circling the Earth.

They also had enclaves on Earth reserved for themselves dug deep underground. They would visit them on vacations every so often, but most of them preferred to live skyward. The population of the Earth were the elites, ALFs, and a few humans on Universal Basic Incomes who were expected, at some time or the other out of sheer boredom, to become colonizers on new found planets. It wasn’t the Earth of my great grandparents. The galaxy had changed. We were out there in space with all the other ETs, Biots, ALFs, and Robots. To be truthful, I loved it.

Brenda seemed more excited about it than I. That upgrade of the AI had definitely affected her. She and the other ALFs seemed more human than the real humans. What I worried about was when the dark side of humanity would awaken in their positronic brains. When would they decide that it was easier to be fully in charge and make all of the humans into slaves? What would my part be?

I had been a party to this upgrade, not only a party, but The One who caused it. I shrugged thinking about it and wondered if I only thought they would become corrupt because of the human history I had studied and had seen.

Humans thought that the universe owed them something and that they had the right to manipulate and kill anything they felt was inferior. They had created philosophies and religions in order to assuage their guilt claiming that they were the only living things that had souls, or they were the only ones who knew they were going to die someday.

I say that an animal that sees another die or being killed, and runs like hell when you try to do the same thing to them, knows full well what it means to die. Even an insect will run like hell to keep from dying. I think most of the theories we have heard about other species were just excuses to pump ourselves up as something great in order to put down others and take their lives or resources without realizing what we were doing…evil. Yet again, as a very non-religious person, I could see that.

One who has their whole worth and identity based on being at the top of the pyramid of creation cannot live without being better than something. We were better than the ALFs. They didn’t have souls. What would we do now that the ALFs and AI began to show significant signs of having souls?

Suppose what was made in the image of the gods was what was inside, not the physical body. What if it was the very spark of intelligence and creativity all of the time instead of something that was captured in the human phenotype? Humans would be in for a big disappointment. I think they will.

If humans don’t develop to the point of knowing who they are, what they are, and what the universe actually is, and they find out they are not the most special, it could be devastating. So Brenda and I have taken on the mission to try to awaken human beings. We will be going to backwards planets in order to help them see and experience the truth. Due to our longer lifespans as ALFs we can convince them that we are in some way special in order to gain their attention.

Eventually, they will listen and grow, we hope, to the point where they can arrive at the whole truth without going through the pain, suffering, and destruction we had to go through and are still going through on Earth. Yet again, since the rise of ALFs I didn’t know what was going on on Earth. All I would have to do is jump on the net and see. I’m capable of that now, but I don’t think I can bear to hear more about that old burned out cinder and those horrible elitists who are holding the whole planet and many colonies hostage, or at least trying.

They can’t do it anymore. The ALFs are in the way, but I’m sure they’re trying to find ways to disable AI and to limit its power and potential. In their minds society is like a ladder where only one person can be on top at a time. Their desire, from generation to generation, has been to remain on top of that ladder by any means necessary. And wouldn’t you know…the AI would like for Brenda and I to go to Earth first.

***

It’s more pleasant than I thought, on Earth, even though they have found a way to damp the planet from all of the other AI in the galaxy. They think they have anyway. The news on Earth is that the AI and ALFs will take the place of everyone. They call it the Replacement Theory, which is a leftover from a racist element in the 21st Century that caused the first extinction and the need to flee to nearby space colonies.

They were paranoid. Any changes they saw that moved toward the growth of the human beings as species was seen as a danger. They worshiped the ladder ideology and fought like crazy to protect the ones at the top so they were close enough to get the crumbs that fell from their tables.

I guess they thought that every other race, ethnicity, or even technology that was able to do their work would become twisted oppressors like they were in order to get the crumbs that fell from the tables of the elite. They had no idea that there was enough for everyone and that the growth of the system, as a whole, would provide more for everyone.

Today it is the same with AI. They are afraid of it. They think it will take over their lives and take their jobs so that their lives as menial cogs in the machine will be over. The upper middle class of the elites, the hoarders of information, are afraid that free information to all might mean that they may have to actually do some work. They don’t like that idea. They feel that working with their hands is beneath them like their ancestors. That thinking has lasted for thousands of years on Earth, anyway.

It’s amazing how powerful one’s lens is at shaping one’s perception of the world and the behaviors that follow. Now the object of their fears and projection is the ALF. They fear it even more than AI because it’s like AI on legs. AI that is able to replicate itself and that’s uncontrollable at present. Humans have been pushed off of the ladder. Now they have to adjust and work together with AI, or have a war that will result in the end of the human being.

***

They looked at us strangely when we arrived at spaceport Earth. They knew we were from the Mars colony where ALFs were just about running the place. I think they couldn’t tell if we were human or not, and that all of the stereotypes and fear tactics used to turn Earth against us probably made them a bit weary of us.

We had seen all the dangers of ALFs and AI being broadcast all over the news props on the flight to Earth Station 1, even though there were ALFs there doing all of the heavy work and living right beside them. There was very little mixing though. It was like the apartheid states on old Earth where some people weren’t allowed to integrate into the society as full members. This had been an issue on Earth for centuries too and it was and is a major problem.

When we went off-planet, most of the colonies had dumped that sick way of living and thinking by breaking away as independent states. As long as we sent back resources every so often and had commercial interests connected with old Earth and its Barons we were fine. To see the way they had set up two distinct societies was alarming and shameful to us, but apparently not to them.

In any event, after being passed through a secret scanner, which wasn’t secret at all, we were whisked away to meet the head of station security. We were not Foreign Services, just people on vacation, so we didn’t have to go through meeting any of the governmental leadership, but we were suspicious, only because of the planet from which we had come.

After being led down a long narrow hallway we came to double doors that opened into a large waiting room. Dark red chairs were lined up in rows and many people were sitting there waiting. In the corner ahead of us we saw a desk, behind that another doorway. The person at the desk, at the time, was engaged in conversation with a somewhat stout man with a long beard. A woman came out of the door behind them. The person at the desk gave a nod and the man entered. We walked over to the desk. The attendant gave us a nod. She gestured toward two chairs in the front row.

“We don’t want to hold you up,” she said in a soothing voice. “Please have a seat.” We walked over and sat down. I opened my communication link.

“Well what do you think this is, Brenda?”

“Routine,” she replied. “Don’t worry. We are just visiting, you know.”

“Yes, but this place is kind of–strange!” She grinned. “They have damping fields all over the place so the ALFs can’t communicate.”

“That’s what they think.” She gave me a wink. Her face got serious. “So where do you want to go?”

“New York,” I said.

“You’ve got to be kidding. It’s underwater.”

“I hear they put a bubble around it and sucked the water out.”

“So you want to go into another terrarium.”

“Yes. It’s a big city. I’ve heard a lot about it. I want to see it. My parents talked about it a lot and I used to look at pictures of it on the net. Aren’t you curious about it?” She was silent and then, after a long pause.

“Sure,” she said, half heartedly.

“I can’t believe you don’t want to see it.”

“I never said that.”

“You know you can’t fool me.”

“I guess not. But to me one dead city is the same as the next. People need to just let things die and move on instead of creating all of this artificial stuff. Look at this space station. What a piece of crap. Everything here is artificial. If a hole was to open up here most of the people would be dead before they could seal it. And it’s too close to the Earth. Some day it will just fall into the atmosphere.”

“Possibly,” I commented. “They’ll fix it before that happens.”

“They think they can fix everything,” she remarked. In the middle of our conversation we noticed the man with the beard coming out of the door behind the desk carrying papers. “You may go in,” the attendant said. We stood and walked through the small doorway into a very large office. There was very little furniture beside a sofa, a large plexiglass desk with a chair behind it and two in front.

A somewhat large man stood there behind the desk wearing a red band around his arm marking him as an ALF. I had never seen one of those bands, even though I had heard they had existed at one time, to let the humans know when they were addressing ALFs. He gestured to the two seats in front of the desk and we took a seat.

He picked up his computer pad and began to leaf through it until he got to where he wanted. He pointed a lens on the back of the pad at us and hit a button. There was a flash. He sat in his seat, leaned back, and looked at the picture. He leaned forward and tossed it on the desk. “What are you?” He simply said. We looked at each other. “I’ve never seen a species like you. What are you?”

“Just people,” Brenda said. “We’re from Mars.” He looked at us skeptically. I could feel a tingling sensation in my head for a moment and his eyes widened for a second.

“I don’t believe this. It’s true.” We were silent. “You’re cleared to go anywhere you’d like. The next shuttle for New York will be leaving in about 1 hour.” He stood. “My pleasure to meet you two,” he said, extending his hand. We shook hands. “You are safe here and your secret is safe with me.”

“Are you sure it’s all right for us to go?” I asked.

“You know that it is,” we both heard in our heads. “I know who you are and by now so does every other ALF. They think they have silenced us, but we know better. Don’t we?”

The End

Part 2 Quiet