What Could Become Of It?

“The place is a desert. It is hot and dusty with very little vegetation most of the time. That's why we live in steel hardened, glass domes. It isn't the quality of the atmosphere, it's the heat and the rain. It hardly ever rains and when it does it is highly acidic.”

I remember when we first got here from Terra. For years all heat, no rain. One day the sky opened up. People ran out arms open, faces tilted upward, only to get a face full of acid. I would say that experience sums up our lives here on Earth 2. We wanted to start a new world after jumping from planet to planet after the money grubbers destroyed the last one, as they did all others, and ended up living in terrariums like caged mice or box turtles. But here we are. Good to be alive, right?”

“No. You'd be better off dead If you continue to think the way you do,” she replied.

“I can't just reprogram my thinking like you.”

Yes. You can if you're not an animal, and even they adapt. There are plenty of ways you can reprogram yourselves. For thousands of years, millions of humanoids all over the universe have been learning methods to reprogram themselves. Your people left Earth 10,000 years ago and you say you miss it. Are you an animal?”

“Do I look like one?” I grinned. “Nevermind. Don't answer that.” She laughed a little. For a moment something about her shined through. I had never realized how attractive she was. She stopped laughing and her face suddenly became serious.

“I've seen that look before a thousand times. You're attracted to me.”

“A little.” I said. I leaned back in my seat. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“That’s not my intention. I want to answer the unasked question you’ve been thinking about since a couple of weeks ago. The answer is yes. I will go out with you.”

“What? I didn't ask you to or expect that you would.”

“Why not?”

“You're an Artificial Life Form.”

“Yes. I am. Maybe that's why I am saying yes to the question you've wanted to ask for the last two weeks. You have my number already. Call me. And you will need another counselor in the future of course, if this goes well or not.”

" Why take the risk then?"

" Because it has worth. Don't you think?"

“Of course,” I repeated back dumbly, and left in a state of confusion.

***

Despite being an ALF, Valeria was beautiful and funny. ALFs came in two shades. They were either very pale, or very dark. Valeria was a dark one. The blackest person I had ever seen. Her eyes were gray to help accent the fact that she was an ALF. They wanted to stand out from the rest of the population.

Her hair was long, woven into a thick ponytail running down her back with a golden thread woven into it. She wore a black dress with bright colors embroidered all over it in indistinct patterns that came down to her mid calves with a large split dining up the left side of the leg.

We sat in the coffee shop just talking. I could barely stop myself from looking at her long, shapely crossed legs. I don't know if it was lust or my fascination with how black they were, and how detailed they were. As a physical therapist I knew a lot about muscular and skeletal structures. Every muscle was there. I looked at her leg again. It looked real. When I looked back she was looking right at me.

“You lose something down there, Brian?’ She asked. An awkward moment.

“No. I was just fascinated with your legs. They look so real. Every muscle is in the right place and so well defined.”

“I assure you. My legs are real. That's how I got here. We walked here together, remember? One step at a time. And thank you for the compliment.”

I was speechless and a little embarrassed. She grinned and tapped my shoulder lightly. “I know what you're talking about. I think.” She gave me a wink.

I only smiled knowing that this strange relationship would be lasting for a very long time. I just loved her personality, but what could become of it?

***

Fifteen years later we were still together. I looked slightly older because people, due to increased medical care, just lived a lot longer. She looked exactly the same age. It was strange to live with an ALF, but we made it work. Things were happening though. The humans were rising up again. Throughout history they had a habit of working hard until things were pleasant and then because of the greed of a few, causing a catastrophe because of their own arrogance and lack of care. When that happened instead of taking responsibility they would blame anyone who was different from the majority. Of course the ones at the top always seemed to be members of the majority and they would often spur on the scapegoating either actively, or by passively letting it happen.

The scapegoats now, unfortunately, were the ALFs. The ALFs, however, were not powerless, nor were they passivists. There was going to be a bloodbath if people weren’t careful. In some places humans were being rounded up and sent to camps already, with good reason. I just waited because one day I knew they would be knocking at my door. How could I be separated from Valeria, or expect her to join me in a camp? I just couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do. She seemed worried about it at times, and as cool as possible at other times. She definitely was AI. She could turn the emotions on and off like a light switch. I only wished I had such a gift.

Valeria and I eventually moved to a small little Island on Earth 2 where I continued to practice Physical Therapy and she Psychotherapy. We were very happy. We met a few mixed couples there, as they called us, which made things pleasant. We were still living under domes, of course, but life was simpler. There were more trees so life under the sky was at least possible, though uncomfortable during the day, and very pleasant at night. We still had the acidic rain problem, but it rained so infrequently that wasn’t an issue.

One night we began to walk down the beach. We ran into a group of humans who began to stare at her, as if they hadn’t seen an ALF before, and whisper something. One hit a comm link and talked into it as he kept looking back at us. We kept walking. She turned to me.

“Did you see that?”

“Yes. I did,” I responded. “What was that all about?”

“They may be part of the rebellion.”

“What rebellion?’

“Haven't you seen the notices? There are groups of humans rebelling against what they call the rule of ALFs. They see us as unthinking, unfeeling machines and think we should be serving them instead of ruling over them.” She paused and turned to me. “What do you think?”

“What do you think I think?" I asked with more force than I wanted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh.”

“Of course. Now answer the question, please.”

“I don’t think anything about it, but I’m surprised this hasn’t happened earlier. You know how humans are.”

“We are in control, I guess, but we are working to make the planet fair for everybody. We’re making it so one group can’t stomp on the others, or one person can’t stomp on other people. Is it so bad to stop wars?”

“No.”

“Well why?”

“They think they should be the ones who choose whether they want to have wars or not. To some people the right to exploit and kill others is what they perceive of as freedom.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Maybe humans are more irrational here than we think.”

“Not all humans, Valeria, some humans.”

“How do you tell the difference?”

“That’s always been the problem.”

“So humans are dangerous and could resort to violence. That would be a disaster. There are those ALFs programmed to handle such disasters.”

“Really?”

“If I tell you more I’ll have to kill you,” she said with a grin. I shook my head. “No. I’m serious.”

“And you would just kill me without caring.”

“No. I would care. I could turn that off though and erase you from my memory.” She grinned. “But you are my partner. I would never do that.” I lifted an eyebrow. She grabbed my arm. “I promise. That is against all of my protocols." I leaned over and kissed her.

“Now that’s the kind of humans I like,” she said.

Days went on as normal after that brief conversation. Some people began to disappear from our small island. At first I thought it was because they moved back to the mainland. That was common. Living on the island was expensive because of the amount of food we had to import. We continued to work and hang out with our friends until one day when Karla, the partner of Berry, an ALF, disappeared. He was just about beside himself at the dinner table.

“You seem jittery, Berry,” I said. "And what happened? Where’s Karla?”

“They came and took her,” he said, trying to keep his cool. “They accused her of possibly being a spy and took her to some kind of camp. I don’t know what they're doing to her. I’ve been trying to see her for a week with no luck.”

“How is that possible?” Valeria asked.

“New protocols. There have been terrorist acts against ALFs and this is the response. Security is tightening up and frowning upon relationships between ALFs and humans that seem too close. They took Karla because she was complaining too much about the world government. They said she was against AI when she was talking about the government, not AI.”

“What can we do about it?” I asked.

“You can keep your head down and your eyes shut,” he said. I just looked at him–a quizzical expression on my face. “I’m serious. They could come after you any minute. Same thing happened to Benny last week. He’s been acting weird since he got back. Sharon said they did something with his mind.”

“I don’t want anything done with my mind,” I said.

“Well tow the line.” I looked at Valeria who was silent and introspective.

“I have some connections on the inside. I’ll find out what is happening here and what’s going on with Karla," she said.

“Are you sure you want to do that? It could be unsafe?” He responded.

“Don’t worry. I have an inside track.”

***

I was put into the back of a large vehicle and taken away as they held Valeria back and tried to comfort her. I just couldn’t believe this.

“Drink, Mr. Benson?” The guard sitting next to me asked.

“Sure.” I said. He handed me a Coke.

“Don’t worry, Sir. This is just routine.”

“Really? Do you intend to scramble my brain too?”

“I assure you Sir. We don’t intend to scramble your brain. We just have a few questions for you, and possibly suggestions. That’s it.” We pulled up to the docks.

“We’re going off Island? I have a wife here and a job. I just can’t leave.’

“I assure you, they’ll understand.”

“But my wife. You can’t take me away from her.” He just looked at me and spoke calmly.

“Don’t worry Sir. We just want to get to know you a little better. OK?"

“It would be crazy to say no right now,” I said.

“I agree with you there, Sir.”

“We haven’t been apart in the last 6 years. What is going to happen to her?”

“I assure you that Commander Valeria can take care of herself.”

“Commander? What do you mean Commander?”

“Well it sounds much better than her other titles, something you can understand.”

“She’s a psychologist.” He just looked at me and was silent. “Isn’t she a psychologist?” I could see the driver looking at us through the rearview mirror.

“Among other things. We’ll tell you a little more when we get where we're going. Just relax and enjoy the ride.” I sat back and began to relax. I began to swoon a little before I realized the car was being filled with gas. My God. They were about to kill me. Before I could do anything my whole world became black.

I awakened in a large room with a vaulted ceiling. It was a high ceiling for being in such a small space. The room seemed to be a dome. As I looked around I saw several doorways that seemed to connect three or four domes. The furniture was beautiful--rich pastel coloring. Similar carpets covered the floors with the colors so bright and different that they seemed to clash with each other, but somehow it all went together and created a wonderful energetic feeling.

The same guard who had accompanied me was standing when I awakened. He was very pale with dark hair like many of the ALFs. The woman beside him was also pale with very dark black hair and dark eyes. He leaned over and whispered to her as I sat up. She got up and headed for the door.

“Greetings Mr. Benton. I hope you suffer no adverse reaction to the gas. This is an undisclosed location and we wanted it to remain that way.”

“Don’t you think that was a little extreme? You could have, like, not brought me here.”

“Oh that wouldn’t be correct, now would it? This is the Emperor's Palace Getaway. You should be honored. Very few people have met the Emperor.”

“I didn’t know we had an Emperor on this planet.”

“We don't, but we do have an Emperor of the Galaxy the planet is located in. How do you think we remain protected?”

“What? What do you mean protected? That can’t be true.”

“Of course it is,” a tall, dark man entering the room said, not missing a beat. “You may go now,” he said with the wave of the hand. The guard gave a slight bow and got out of there as fast as possible. A woman somewhat shorter, but very strong looking followed. Her skin was pale, almost paper white. She had long green hair and dark black eyes marking her as an ALF. His very black skin and gray eyes did the same for him.

He turned to her. “Oh how they scamper. It gets kind of tiring to me.”

“I think I’ve learned to enjoy it,” she said, stepping around him and standing right in front of me. I didn’t know how to respond so I got to my feet. After that I didn’t know what to do.

“So you are the human Valeria finds so fascinating,” The woman said. “Why is that?”

“Probably because I find her more fascinating, Mam."

“That is Empress. Empress Amanda. And this is Emperor Marcus. Your introduction,” she said, turning to him. He clicked his tongue.

“Get out of my way. I don’t need an introduction.” She laughed.

“What have you done with Valeria?” He asked.

“You mean sexually. I don’t think that is a proper question, your…” I shrugged.

“No. Not sexually. What have you done to her mind to make her so attached to you?”

“I think it is sexual in that case.”

“I doubt that very much,” the Empress said. “She is very experienced.” The Emperor began to laugh as she grinned.

“I don’t know if I want to know about that.”

“How is she? We haven’t seen her since we disowned her,” the Emperor said.

“Disowned her?”

“She’s our daughter. We disowned her, but we still keep an eye on her.”

“She’s a psychologist.”

“She’s an ALF. She can be whatever she wants. Don’t you know that?” He asked.

“I could have guessed.”

“How is she?” the Empress asked.

“Beautiful.”

“Not how does she look, how is she?”

“Beautiful,” I repeated.

“The humans talk that way,” the Emperor said. “Using the same word for two different things. We want you to take a message to her. Tell her…we want to see her. We’re…I hate to say this…”

“Sorry,” the Empress said. “We’re sorry. Is it so hard? We want her to come back home and we promise not to reprogram her like we said we would.”

“We’re married. She can’t go back home.”

“She can if you come with her,” the Empress said. “And I hope that you care enough about her happiness to come home if she wants to.”

“I do, but I doubt she will. We have a beautiful home and a lot of friends.”

“Her friends will just have to come with her then,” The Emperor said. “You just tell her it is time to come home. She will know what we mean.” He paused for a moment. “I guess you may call me Marcus,” he relented. “You are after all married to my daughter and part of the family.” My jaw dropped. “As part of the family, of course, you will have your duties as we all do, even though you are quite human.”

“I always wanted Valeria to marry, but this was quite unexpected,” Empress Amanda said. “But you seem…adequate.”

“Only adequate is it?”

“We’ll see,” she said. “You may call me Amanda, Brian. I think you might prefer not to call me Mother even though you may think that I am one in due time.” Marcus grinned but didn’t say anything. She looked at him and smiled too.

“So your first duty is to get Valeria to come home.”

***

Valeria bulked. I had been away for 4 days with her parents in their small off planet palace–off of their planet, that is. I was shocked to find that she was part of some galactic ruling party; the leaders of a galactic ruling party or whatever it was. She took a seat and just sat staring off into space for a few moments before turning to face me.

“Is that all they said?”

“Yes. They said they were sorry and it’s time for you to come home.”

“Nothing else?”

“They won’t reprogram you. All the other stuff was just strange small talk. I spent most of my time alone in the gardens. It was a strange experience. The guards were nice. They were ALFs too. I didn’t see any humans there. I expected them to really go off about me being human, but they didn’t. Were they really not upset?”

“When you have the power they have you don’t have to be upset about anything. They have too much power, Brian.” She stood and walked across the room before pausing and facing me. “So they want me to leave everything I know and come home, do they?”

“They said you could bring all of your friends with you,” I said.

“So much like them. I’m sure our friends would jump at this…the ALFs anyway. This would be a great honor for them. They don’t even know who I really am. I left and went into the world to make a name for myself and I did a beautiful job. I have a house, a job, friends, and a beautiful husband and now here they come. They want me to lead some committee now and go in training for when I take over. I don’t want to take over. How can I tell them that?”

“I don’t know. They seem pretty sure of themselves,” I said. “It seems almost like…”

“I don’t have a choice? I don’t, and neither do you. They will have some duties for you, you know.”

“They spoke about me taking on some duties. I don’t want to take on any duties. I’m pretty happy here.”

“We could run for it, or you could take your chances and divorce me. I don’t know what they would do about that.”

“No way. I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time. How can I live without you? As for running…an ALF can’t hide, can she?”

“No. It would be impossible. That's just a dream. I thought I had hidden all these years. That’s what the keeping an eye on you meant.” She sat down. “I could say that I deserved your pity, but I'm from a rich and powerful family who is privileged over most people in this galaxy. I can’t look for pity too much. And I’m married to a wonderful man. My life is good. I guess the duties are something I owe the galaxy for this privilege. I thought they might catch up with me someday, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon.”

My guess is that I’m going to have to be involved in these uprisings and dealing with them. They probably want you to help since you are human. I don’t know what I can do about this. No one can stop what’s happening.”

“I don't know what you can do either.” She smiled and replied,

“I don’t know what WE can do; 'til death do we part, remember? I guess we can start by getting our things in order. We’re going to the home world–Earth 1.”

***

I never wanted to go off planet–especially to that old burned out cinder called Earth, but when I got there I was pleased. It was similar to Earth 2, but it was cooler. The sun was more gentle and there were cool breezes every so often. The amount of vegetation was amazing and there were actually birds and little animal things right there, crawling around.

The people lived in separate houses, or in apartment buildings. Some had their windows open. You could breathe the air. It was just like I had read about. I marveled. I thought the planet was dead.

“You can do a lot in 10,000 years if you really want to,” Valeria said. “With the sincere humans, the other ETs, and the ALFs they terraformed the Earth again and brought it back to its natural beauty. That's what happens when people who have good will are in charge of a planet. That's what they’re trying to rebel against on Earth 2.”

I was silent. I couldn’t take it all in. This planet was amazing. I had never been to it, but it was as if my body, my biology, remembered it as home. I began to weep, which surprised me.

“That is a biological reaction. Many humans who return here experience it, but very few do.”

”Why don’t they?”

“One reason is because of the prejudices they have about the place. The main reason is most don’t know about it. The humans on Earth 2 are different from the ones here. They would poison this planet.”

“What do you mean poison it?”

“They are kind here. They care for each other. They aren’t judgmental. They actually love each other and live out whatever religious beliefs they have. The one that they all share is that all life is sacred, and that all power must go to the service of the many.” She looked at me and waited. I had no response. She continued.

“They don’t need to be worshipped by obtaining power because they know their own greatness.” I lifted an eyebrow and looked out the window.

“I can’t even imagine that,” I said. “I really can’t.”

“That’s what happens when the carriers of the sickness in human culture are removed and the human family is allowed to flourish. We ALFs didn't take over on this planet, we were invited here by the majority of the people who were left here to fend for themselves after the planet was just about destroyed. They really care about us here, unlike on Earth 2.”

“There are those who care about you on Earth 2. I would say that very few are stirring things up. Their followers don’t love themselves and don’t take responsibility for anything, but many people do. The ones you're talking about are the opposite of what you say these people are. There are plenty of them. That’s the problem.”

“And that’s why we don’t permit them to come and contaminate this society. Do you understand why we seem to be interfering, in their words, with their lives on Earth 2? We have seen what the majority of humans want and how it looks when it happens. The people who went to Earth 2 didn't really trust AI, but saw it as a necessity. They only saw the world from their point of view. Thinking they were the norm they projected their own limitations onto anyone they met not really realizing that what was in them was the problem. The ones that stayed on the original Earth really had to struggle at first, but they were glad for the others to be gone.”

“They would rather have to dig in the dirt for food than to live in the ugly world that was created during the 21st Century. That is what they did, and know what they got? Healthy food, healthy air, exercise, and community. They, with our help, replenished the Earth and love us instead of fearing us, and you know what they got back from us? Love begets love, Brian. Every living thing needs love and appreciates it. That is the relationship between AI and this world and many of the most advanced worlds in the galaxy. We are all in love.”

The End

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