Tag: sci-fi

What is a decade? – Gothenburg

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Working Chapter 10 of my Is it for us alone? novel in progress

Originally written under the same Chapter as ‘What is a decade?’ but I decided to split it up for now.  At least for the purposes of the blog.

The route to the harbour where the helicopter was uneventful, except for the two corpses that he encountered on the way.  When the machine had been turned on, most inhabitants here had been in bed, but some later revellers had been walking home when they were stopped in their tracks.  Of course, the rotten faces were familiar, which was part of what made this trek so tragic, but one part of his mind would not allow him to mourn.  Instead the reaction on seeing both was to run as fast as he could to the harbour.

Unfortunately, his body was still not up to the memories that remembered running being an ease and so it took a toll.  His weak frame still not capable of living up to his own expectations.  This would change in time, but for now it was a disappointment that all those active parts of his mind would have to deal with.  Coming to the harbour and seeing the helicopter gave him great joy.  It was almost as seeing your baby again.  Interesting, the inquisitive part of him thought, that someone in there could be attached to this helicopter as though it was their own baby.  So it was though and so he accepted the joy instead of allowing the dark parts of his mind to reign free.

Preparing the helicopter for the relatively short journey was a breeze and before he knew it he was up in the air.  Except for the dearth of traffic below – all still and silent now – it was not as if much had changed from his memories of the scene from above.  Gothenburg was only a short distance away, so the flight would be very short and uneventful – given that there were no other aircraft in the air.  He enjoyed looking down at the ocean and flying with an ease that meant he felt very much relaxed and at peace.  This would be disturbed all too soon as he entered the airspace above the city.

It was visible that something had occurred.  That this place was now devoid of life, was obvious and that something catastrophic had occurred was certain.  There were no longer any fires, but you could see that cars had piled up and crashed into each other and the buildings all around.  His gaze was fixed on the destruction that was below and he pondered on how it had been him that had caused all of this.  He felt a welling up of sadness in his body that made him shudder before he was whipped back into his objective.  To find what wasn’t there, to understand what had happened.  He went to land near the hospital as he knew that was where he had to go.

Landing was a breeze as luckily there had not been a helicopter parked on the hospital helipad.  He disembarked and made his way to the OB/GYN section of the hospital – he knew exactly where he was going and so much of him knew exactly what he was going to find, but he had to go and see it for himself.  He had to go and see what was there and face it.

The corridors wound in this hospital so it took him much longer than he ever would have wanted.  His body was sweating with fear and his mind was racing as not only did that one part of his mind race towards the delivery room, but almost all others willed that part not to push on.  The struggle was real and was taxing, but the one overcome.  There was something in him that said, “We have to know.”

There was no choice.

As he rounded the last corridor he faced the door beyond which was the answer that he craved.  The answer that he knew, but could not know.  So, he opened the door and slowly entered the room.  It was still lit, he wasn’t sure why exactly, but he thought perhaps it was some back up generator in the hospital that had kicked in.  “Stop,” he yelled to that part of him that even questioned it and he moved slowly into the room.  It was odd looking at this women.  He knew her, both from this angle and from within, but the loss was not as real as it could have been.  She was dead, but still survived in some sense.  A loss and a gain was how it felt, but the two conflicted and drove him mad.  This was not why he had come here.  To stare at what was essentially himself now.  He came for what was lying in the cot next to the bed with the women.

He hesitated just at the point where he couldn’t quite see into the cot and considered the possibilities of what he would see.  Most of his mind knew, but did not vocalise what was bound to be the truth, but parts held out that the baby girl would still be lying alive in the cot.  The kind part of Anders encouraged him that it was somehow possible that a child that had just been born would be able to have missed out on his sweep.  Perhaps, he thought, the baby would be here and he could name her together with the world in his head – name her something of hope that there could be a future for people beyond his body.

There was to be no life beyond his body though, as he reached the cot and looked at the lifeless flesh that was a short time ago a living, breathing child – just not in time to be absorbed by him.  He fell to his knees in tears, his insides bunching together and his eyes flooding with tears as if they were being squeezed out of him.  Never in his life or any life that he could remember had the loss felt this real and this ultimate.  All feeling from his legs had gone and he now bent forward on the ground and spoke out loud to himself.

“How could I have let this happen?  This is only the start of the cost of what I have done.  I can feel the other losses, those that I hadn’t dared think about, now flooding my consciousness.  I must do something, but what I don’t know.”

He felt silly talking out loud to himself, but he simply did not know how to react in this situation.  There was someone that he wanted to console him, but then he knew that there was no one to lean on – they were all inside and none of them was up to the burden when they dug deep.  So he lay there with his face in his hands rocking to soothe some of the pain.  Thinking was not worth it and it produced no good answers.

Some time passed.  Anders couldn’t say exactly, but he imagined it had been hours.  He finally stood up and looked at the small bundle in the cot.  Trembling, he reached in to grab a hold of her.  Despite the urges within him that were demanding that he look at the girl, he did not.  Too much of him knew that it would be a moment filled only of disgust and regret.  Better to keep a memory, painful as it was to think of it, than to put himself through that.

With the bundle now safely wrapped up and in his arms, he gently made his way out of the hospital.  It was clear to him that he would have to go to the cemetery out in the eastern part of the city, where Linn’s parents were buried and where her daughter would also rest.  It was strange to think that this child had somehow escaped the grasp of his machine, but it had.  He remembered back to the moment when it hit blackness for Linn.  Difficult as it was to pinpoint such an exact memory rather than a general skill stored as a memory, he felt the need to understand what had happened.

Pain was what he could picture, but a different kind now.  Childbirth it was, of course.  The memory didn’t last long as all he could see was the child being born, but there being no sound or screams and then just blackness.  Blackness then turned into what he was living now.  This mingled mess in his head where Linn’s memories, soul perhaps even resided and wrestled with the others.  Could the child have actually been alive, but then been neglected and so died?

Anders had to dig deeper in his memories as he walked through the city towards the cemetery.  It was odd walking the familiar streets, without any of the familiar activity or sounds.  Haunting was not even the start of it.  Devoid of all the pleasures, and of course the darker elements, that once filled them and brought them to life.  This too made him even further depressed at what he had done.  Then he snapped out of it again.  So foolish to walk and hate himself for this.  Yes, the blame was his and now he was the only person left, but done was done and there was no sense in beating himself up over what he knew he could not fix.  So he refocused on the child.

The delivering doctor must be in his head somewhere.  Doctor Filipson was his name, that Anders remembered from Linn.  Unfortunately, the good doctor did not have as strong memories as Linn and was wallowing far in the background somewhere.  If he was able to access those memories he might be able to know whether the child was stillborn or if it had some chance that it was simply alive at the wrong moment.  The baby had ended up in the cot, so he wasn’t sure if Linn had just blacked out before the absorption.  It was a dilemma that he may never be able to answer, even with all of the memories in the world.

Without Anders intending it, the child in his arms had just become a parcel that he was carrying, without much meaning.  It was just his duty to carry the parcel to the destination and so he did.  Before he knew it he was walking along some tramlines and nearing the large churchyard.  It was mainly crowded roads and then before you knew it the churchyard opened up.

Too many memories flooded back into his head.  Sorrow and grieving, loss and absence, hatred and love were all there in his head.  These episodes were becoming acute in certain circumstances that left Anders in a debilitated state.  First the hospital and now the graveyard.  Clearly they were both places of high human emotion and he simply could not contain the entire population of Earth that was rising up with him as he entered it.  On his knees again, he held his head in his hands and rocked back and forth.  Images of death flashed before his eyes.  Not of people dying, but of the funerals and the pains that death caused.

Time was all that he could use to cure his paralysis, so he laid on the ground curled up in the foetal position, pondering his dilemma while his mind also swam amongst the pain.  Clearly he would have to stay away from places of high emotion from now on.  A difficult task for sure, as he wasn’t entirely sure what places would count.  Was it only places associated with pain, or would the high emotions of a large football stadium or a parliament also have the same effect?  He didn’t know, so he would have to endeavour to simply be better at thinking things through rather than acting on the impulses of the population.  A couple of shocks like this would surely make them more willing to leave the rule of the body to a reasoned set of decisions that most agreed with rather than the emotional force of one or two.  Then again, that was what people had thought of the world in general before its collapse (even before Anders), but that in the end was driven by the emotions of the few to the detriment of the many.

Thinking about the problem seemed to relax him some and he slowly came out of his paralysis.  The bundle that he had been holding and then dropped when he was overcome with the pain of death was now unravelled on the ground.  Sara, no, the baby, lay on its back now staring up at Anders with the dead eyes of an unformed lifetime.  His resolve managed to suppress Linn for this moment though.  She could not grab a hold of Ander’s body from her strong perch in his mind as he was resolved to bury this baby and allow the true grieving to commence.  He realised that he needed bury this baby and then bury the past.

Linn’s family grave was only a short walk into the graveyard, but first Ander’s needed tools.  Naturally, he knew where the gardener’s shed was and he moved across to it.  All he needed was a shovel.  For a moment while he was in the shed he felt an urge coming through him to clean up the graveyard.  In normal times the graveyard had been a pillar of beauty and serenity, but now it was returned to nature.  The weeds that had long been the bane of the gardener’s life had sprung up freely without the genocidal hand of the gardener being around to end their kind as best he could.  Of course, as many another gardener knew, it was impossible to weed them out for good.  There was always a seed left, waiting to return and take up its inheritance from the earth.  This fact irritated parts of him greatly, but he was resolved to stay strong.  Bury the past, that was his only objective at the moment.

Shovel slung over his shoulder and bundle in his left hand, he strode through the graveyard, using the pathways so as not to offend the mourners that he had suppressed in his head.  He approached one of the outlying family burial plots that was by the cemetery wall and rested under an old birch tree and an oak that had either been youths in this part of the world long before the cemetery or had been placed there many generations ago by a church gardener.  Even with all the knowledge trapped up in his mind, this he could not know for sure.  He could make a guess, but those simple, plain memories had died long ago.  This was the spot where he started to bury the past.  This was where he would begin to atone for his mistake and to put his mind at ease.

Anders flung the shovel over his shoulder and planted it in the ground.  Then he gently laid the bundle to the side and began his labour.  His physical state had improved dramatically since he had absorbed.  It was a combination of the drive that several of the memories gave him and the urges for exercise that ran deep in his veins now.  Luckily for him, in some ways, this was no grown person.  The grave he dug was not too shallow, but did not reach the depth of six feet that was so customary.  He quickly checked with his memories of Linn to make sure that this would be ok, and it was agreed that it would be.  Sara, the baby girl, the baby with no life to speak of and never an experience except for the first silent moments of life, was placed in to the ground and then Anders shifted the dirt back over to cover the hole.  It was the hardest thing that he had done in his life.

This was only the beginning though.  He stood and bowed his head, not in prayer, but in thought.  There was nothing to it, but to resolve that he should bury and more humans that he came across in his travels around to world that he now only shared with nature and the other animals that had so long been the servants of humans.  Of course, following this rule would mean that it would take him some time to move anywhere, but he was prepared to do so to atone for his irreversible misdeed.  At this point, with immortality still in his mind and feeling in reach (though he did not know why), Anders thought that a decade did not sound so long, so there was no need to worry about time.

What is a decade?

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Working Chapter 9 of my Is it for us alone? novel in progress

Routines had always been part of humans’ lives despite some valiant efforts to divorce ourselves from them.  They helped us tick along when we weren’t quite sure that we wanted to and allowed the days to turn into years.  There was nothing particularly fun about these orderly little steps, but they were there.  They sat in our subconscious and directed parts of our lives which we were never sure of, or rather which we were because of our faithful routines.

In Anders’ subconscious the routines battled for supremacy while on the exterior they frustrated Anders.  There were mornings where he would wake up and move to drink coffee and others where he thirsted for whiskey.  The former were better days and the latter days of absent minded stumbling, first on the search for the life affirming poison in neighbouring homes and then in the aftermath of the drunk.  Still, despite what must have been months (but could have been days) no personality had been able to fully and finally take over Anders’ mind.  He was still Anders, but now he was floating amongst billions of other lives with trillions of ideas and knowledge that were previously alien to him.

This morning when he had roused himself with the sun he felt the urge to take a run.  Luckily he had a relatively fit body despite his previously chronic habit of remaining holed up in his garage, and so the run was not a complete shock to his system.  Running had not produced the clarity he had expected, but everything he felt was like an old memory – it was in between familiar and foreign, like visiting Canada as an Englishman.  When he reached the top of a cliff where he had planned on turning around and continuing his run home, he stopped.  The place was familiar – as almost everywhere was now – and he decided to take a breather and figure out what it was that he could remember about this place.

He remembered running up here before dawn to watch the sunrise after its short slumber in the early summer.

There was a pang of lost youth when he saw himself sitting here late on a beautiful midsummer’s eve drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

Dark memories surfaced of a decision as whether it was time to end a life and passionate ones of lives being conceived.

There were many memories as allowed them to come to the surface and then none as he asserted his dominance again.  He walked around the small grassy area at the top of the cliff and then he noticed a bench overlooking the ocean.  Control slipped from his grasp as another consciousness half took over.

Emotion flowed through his body as he remembered the beginning of a life – not conception, but a shared life, a love.  That love was never lost, but the three pieces of it had been separated and only two had found their way into Anders.  There was nothing to it now but to discover what had become of the third.  At his fastest pace Anders ran back to his house.

Somewhere in the city.  That’s where he had to go.  Exactly what he was looking for was still a mystery to him, but there was an overpowering urge to make for the city.  When he got there he would know where to look.  He packed some basic supplies – coffee, water and food – and then he made his way out the front door.

As he crossed the threshold he instinctively stopped and began to worry about decaying bodies and the disease they would breed.  Then he worried about the wild animals that had or will be attracted by the flesh.  Coffee, water and food were not enough out there in this wild world that he had created.  He needed some proper supplies.

Then the pang of loss, the draw to the city came to him again.  It was harder to describe than love and infinitely more compelling.  He simply had to get going and find whatever it was that was drawing him in.  The bare essentials that he had weren’t enough, but he didn’t need much more despite the parts of his mind telling him that he did.

His mind wandered to logistics again rather than the feelings that were drawing him.  There was a helicopter at the coast guard base just outside of the harbour and his subconscious now begged him to reach at that opportunity as well – it was a way of reaching joy and satisfying the draw at the same time and he could not resist it.

After hastily packing a few additional supplies to satiate parts of his mind Anders made his way on foot out of his house.  As he reached the end of his driveway, he stopped and looked back.  His self, that part of him that had become obscured since he undertook his great experiment, had burst through to retake control of his mind and body.  It was similar to the moment of hesitation, that some feel, before making a jump of a cliff into the water whereby you know that everything will be ok and concurrently are afraid to jump.  As with everything since his absorption of all living minds, this feeling was amplified in such a way that he fell to his knees and grabbed his head.

Finally his pure mind had full control and he shook his head in anger at what had happened to him.  How could his worst fear have really come to pass?  This was not part of his grand plan to be alone, truly alone on this Earth.  He screamed at the top of his lungs and raised himself from the ground.  This would simply not do for Anders.  A life of solitude and rationality was what he needed and what he deserved.  Freedom from all of the insanity that he knew dwelled in the reserves of his mind at this point.  They would have to be expunged.

No easy feat this would be, but he knew that he could put them away.  He made his way back to the garage, discarding the backpack he was carrying as he did so.  A fatal mistake it seemed, as some rattled in the pack and sent a striking memory of a child to the fore of his mind where he couldn’t hide from it.  The child in this memory was lying on her back rattling a toy rabbit that her father had bought her before he left to go and fight.  It was fluffy, but had the rattle of a classic child’s toy.  The noise was from something more like a dream than a memory though.  This had not actually happened, it was no true memory, and knowing this made him search out for some other part of his mind.  Nothing was found.

Anders was gone again and only the emotions, spurred on by the rattle and the void where he was searching for some other soul remained.  They drove him to pick the pack up again and head for the helicopter.  These emotions also knew that they could not leave the garage intact, as Anders would always seek to come back if there was anything left.  That Anders needed to be locked away now though, and the view of the garage in flames would do that.  Quickly, he ran over to Thomason’s house and picked up a canister of petrol from his garage.  After dousing most of the equipment in petrol, he dipped a long cloth into the canister to act as a wick and lit fire to it.  As he walked away quickly he could sense the impending explosion.  And then there it was in all its glory.  He turned his head to look at it and then Anders, the pure Anders who feared humanity was locked away.

Clouds

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Working Chapter 8 of my Is it for us alone? novel in progress

Nothing happened at first. This was to be expected of course – after all, the Earth is large and it even takes a wave of energy some time to circumnavigate it, but the delay wouldn’t be too long. Eventually, or rather within a minute, it would hit him like a wall.

What it would feel like, Anders had no idea. Still there was some recollection of this exact feeling in the back of his mind. He knew there would be something, but for now there was nothing. It was the anticipation that Dan had felt the first time he tried ecstasy. The memory was fuzzy, but he was certain this moment was comparable – the anticipation mixed with fear of something going horribly wrong – it sent adrenaline rushing through his veins in a way he had never felt before. It was beautiful and then it hit.

There was no physical sensation. His heart rate was elevated because of the adrenaline. Otherwise there was nothing. His mind was packed and overactive – like the only bunker left in town that everyone knows about right before a nuclear bomb is about to explode. Clumsily the memories swam around his brain while he tried to get to grips with it all. After a few moments of consciousness, he passed out and his brain set about sorting through the memories and adjusting itself to the new influx. Luckily Anders had remembered this side effect from his experiment and was hooked up with nutrients to ensure he didn’t die there in his garage before his solo-rule of Earth began.

*

Anders estimated that he had been out cold for a couple of days. There was no doubt that he felt weak, but he also knew beyond a doubt that he would be fine. Besides a bit of disorientation and dehydration, he didn’t really feel anything adverse. There were, however, many urges – the most powerful of which was for a cup of coffee. Many types came to mind, but a nice big cup of black coffee would do nicely – besides it was all he had in the house.

He knew there was an espresso machine in number 15 Longsten Gatan, but his current physical state made convincing arguments over any walking further than his kitchen. Groggily he made his way there and put the coffee machine on. He was on a well-practiced routine of millions so there was no thought involved at all, simply action. He sat in an armchair and stared out the window at the rising dawn. Everything in him, physically and mentally felt more content then he could have ever imagined. Of course there was the rush of triumph. The pure elation at completing a feat that had never been done before and that by its very nature can only be done once and never again. It was a singular achievement in the history of man. You may discover penicillin, but guess what, someone else can as well. But not this. Not Anders’ accomplishment.

There was also another feeling swimming around in his head. Something he had never truly appreciated. There was silence. Not simply the lack of noise, but the lack of frustrations and stresses – a weight lifted off the shoulders of mankind itself. It was incredibly calming. A truly beautiful peacefulness that had never existed before. There was no fighting, no plays for power and no destruction. Instead there was unison, collaboration – no, not collaboration – but perfect knowledge. All the human computers in the world were no slaves to one. Their knowledge would work together to understand the mysteries of the universe. It was, Anders felt in that moment, glorious.

*

Where to start really? Anders urged to do so many things all at once. He was in control – have no qualms about that – but there was so much that he wanted to do. Skydiving, for instance. He remembered the rush and wanted the adrenaline to coarse through his own veins – the memories were fantastic, but he wanted more. Many other urges bubbled to the surface. All were for experiences that he had memories of being the best that Earth and humanity could offer.

He is in control though and so brings his mind around to the task at hand – immortality. Finally, with of the pooled knowledge of humanity, he was sure he could discover the secret.

Despite contol, there are now more distractions – urges to the things part of normal lives of so many. Focus is difficult, but progress continues – immortality? Not yet, but steps are being made.[ Consider removing]

Two weeks passed without significant progress. It was not a lack of knowledge that stifled hi creativity or a lack of vision that hindered his momentum. It was a lack of focus. Billions of competing desires would flout to the surface of his consciousness and devote the energies of the population of Ander’s mind to solving some ancillary problem of the universe or fighting an urge that couldn’t be accomplished in that moment. At times he would feel pangs of loss or sorrow. They would hit him like a wave against the rocks, with great intensity and then receding back in to the ocean of his infinite subconscious.

He sat in the garden contemplating all of this, in particular his control over it. In his hand he held a cold beer, which he swigged from now and again to break the stillness of his present position and equally to enhance its tranquillity. There was something familiar and comforting about these actions. It made him feel content with his place in the universe and free from all his cares. Immortality, or rather achieving immortality, was far from his mind. Now he only wanted to fully control this onslaught from his subconscious. This moment was calm, but it was because he had reached a somewhat meditative state. As soon as he tried to focus on one thing it would cease to be.

It may now only be possible for him to focus on things that benefited this new whole, he reflected, and that personal desires could no longer take command of the resources his body had to offer. Surely there was some desire for immortality, but not that of one man. Now that only one human existed in the known universe it was difficult to discover exactly what could rank as being worth the interest of all humankind. Overpopulation, poverty, death to an extent and most of the problems with disease had been wiped out in one brutal masterstroke orchestrated by Anders and along with them war had been put to peace. He tried not to think too seriously of what he should do next and resolved to sit with his cold beer and contemplated his solitary confinement on this rock juxtaposed with the riotous prison of his subconscious.

The sun began to set behind the rocky island in the distance and into the calm and teeming ocean beyond and Anders sat and watched feeling that time had jerked itself to a halt that was uncertain. It desired to edge forward, but was uncertain how to proceed with only one human chasing it forward.

Arachnophobia

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Working Chapter 7 of my Is it for us alone? novel in progress

Fears can often take hold of a person when there is no logical or practical reason for them to exist at all. They covertly take hold and make the strongest people doubt themselves into failure. Even conquering such a fear may not lead to an expected outcome of the status quo, because the soul of the person will be altered forever.

Anders fear of losing control lingered despite his proven assertion of control over his conquered memories. There was no immediate rush to absorb all of humanity’s memories, thereby killing all of their physical bodies as the Triumvirate was in no haste to obliterate the other populations of Earth. Their strategy depended on annexing those populations’ territories once they had succumbed to their quarantines, and as such it would be rather foolish to contaminate those areas with biological or atomic warfare. Unfortunately for them, their choice was logical, but ultimately incorrect – swift destruction of those territories would have eliminated the anomaly that was Anders and ensured at least some sort of survival.

All this was in Ander’s favour of course, so he waited to see if there were any latent side effects from the absorption or if he could refine his calculations any more. Eventually he would metaphorically pull the trigger, but he bided his time.

Weeks had passed since his experiment and the only side effects were a more refined palette owing to the recent swathe of gourmet food he was cooking up for himself and the ability to pilot a helicopter if he so chose. It was comforting for him and allowed him to consider other options to solve this dilemma he had with the rest of humanity. Two weeks had passed to be precise and he had not altered his thinking. There were no side effects so he must absorb all memories in the world and leave humanity the property of one. He was concerned about all those decaying bodies that would soon crop up around the world, but he had a plan of how to deal with that particular conundrum.

The calculations he had made ensured that the wave that captured the memories would flow around the entire globe before returning to his receiver – a slightly larger version o his helmet that was hooked up to a computer mainframe in the event that all the memories were to vast to store within his own brain, compression or not. He did no expect any need for it, but he preferred to be safe when working with such vast numbers – his calculations were correct, but his own physiology may react in a way he was not prepared for.

Anders had ploughed years of thought and months of planning into his initial experiment. True, he had only been forced into this action by the overbearing reach of the Triumvirate, but the quest for ultimate knowledge and immortality had now long been resident in his conscious and unconscious thought. So it was with great calculation, fear and hesitation that he had absorbed the memories of six human beings. Now, after only a few weeks and relatively little preparation he planned to absorb seven billion sets of memories – more than one billion times the information than his experiment in one fell swoop.

Then again, it would never be one billions times the information in truth. His machine was programmed to filter out non-unique memories. It wasn’t that different perspectives were bad – he would get those sets of memories – it was that he didn’t want a billions sets of memories about how to take a piss or react to fire. Well, at least he didn’t want a billion memories that said, “Fire is hot and burns,” – fire fighting could turn out to be a useful skill.

Regardless of what memories, what vital pieces of human knowledge would eventually end up at his disposal, he was now ready. After dinner he would flip the switch that would eradicate all of his opposition and hopefully send him on the path to immortality and perfect knowledge.

His dinner, his last supper as one of many, was simple yet sublime. He had barbequed chicken, after letting it marinate in limejuice, olive oil, salt and pepper together with a small salad and some fried potatoes. Home cooked food – a type of comfort food, as it were. Without a doubt he enjoyed every bite in a way he never had before and sat staring out of the kitchen window for a long time after he had finished eating to simply drink in the scenery. Again, quite an unusual thing for Anders. Still, he had no thought of changing his current trajectory. The scenery was beautiful and he sat thinking to himself that he would enjoy this moment if he were the complete human.

This was the phrase that he had decided he would become once his absorption was completed – only a matter of time for that now. He relaxed in a reclining chair in his garage and slowly pulled the monitors and inputs closer to him. There were sensors, which he attached to himself to monitor his vitals while he underwent the process. This was also necessary, as he had built in a type of dead man’s grip that would shut down the process if his vitals took a turn for the disastrous.

With everything set and ready for the best and worst he flipped the switch that consolidated humanity into one.