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  My flight landed in O’Hare, and I had to connect in a different terminal. I didn’t feel the need to rush. To get to the other terminal, I took the underground tunnel with moving walkways beneath neon lights bolting through the corridor. The airport was jammed with people, as you might always expect of O’Hare. They were mere shades flowing around me, shadows with baggage. The connecting flight only took another hour, arriving at the empty Port Columbus near midnight. Another Ryde drove me back to Michael and Daphne’s vacant home.

  The house was filled with remnants of their relationship—I didn’t even bother to turn on the lights. In the darkness, I simply laid on their couch and let my mind drift into nothingness. It was cold and getting colder, and I ambled back in that endless eternity, those incomprehensible galactic machines waltzing through the heavens around me, sight unseen. I awoke in the twilight before dawn, dim grays bringing the world into sharper focus. The photos of them on the wall. The framed poster from The Day the Earth Stood Still.

  Across the street, I saw Adam and Didi’s smartcar in their driveway. Suddenly a clearer path laid itself out in my mind, a way forward that I’d been blind to thus far. I went into Daphne and Michael’s bedroom and found a new pair of pants, a shirt, and a sweater. Her side of the closet was completely empty. I showered the previous day’s travel off me in the same tub where Daphne had attempted suicide.

  In the bathroom mirror, Michael Render’s face stared back at me, the face that I would have to wear from now on, a stranger whom I’d never met and would never truly know. He remained illusory, hidden deep in some internal chamber I’d yet to unlock. Perhaps he’d never return, and I’d continue with him until we were both extinguished, washed away on the wave breaking the tide.

  I wrote a note and left it on the kitchen counter—it didn’t take long.

  I donned Render’s black wool peacoat and gray scarf.

  I knocked on Adam and Didi’s door. It was early, sometime during their normal morning routine, which I had timed out when I watched them before.

  A long pause filled the space between the knock and the answer at the door. There Adam stood as the door pulled back, the vestiges of stubble growing on his worn and tired face, a half-open robe draped over his shoulders and torso. He didn’t say a word, simply opening the door further, beckoning me inside.

  I followed him into their kitchen, his feet shuffling softly against the tiled floor as he approached the counter. He barely acknowledged my presence, pouring himself a cup of coffee from a pot, and then another cup, which I presumed was for me. He pulled a chair out from his wooden kitchen table, offering me a seat in silence, setting the second cup down in front of it. The house was conspicuously quiet.

  He sat in the chair directly across, sipping his black coffee. I didn’t take the seat, but rather tossed the black phone Block had given me in front of him.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “A most powerful weapon,” I answered. “And it’s all yours.”

  “Why? Why give it to me?”

  “I can’t carry it. Where’s Didiane?”

  “Gone,” he said. “I wasn’t Ian. I wasn’t her husband, so she took Sabrina and disappeared.”

  At that, I pulled the chair back and sat down, taking the cup of black coffee he had offered in both hands, letting it warm them. “So what are you going to do?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. The whole world is out there for me, and I’m untethered to go experience it, I suppose. What about you?”

  “Same,” I said. “There’s not much point in staying here, wearing someone else’s face.”

  He picked up the phone, but it wouldn’t turn on for him. I unlocked it and explained that he probably needed to reprogram the facial recognition software.

  “So what is it?” he asked again.

  “They gave it to me. They said they reverse engineered the Dead Hand and programmed it into an app, downloaded to that phone.”

  “You’re telling me this phone has the ability to wipe out humanity?”

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” We shared a brief laugh as we each sipped from our respective coffee cups. “It’s the app labeled Thermo. They said that it was meant to be a deterrent, in the hands of a human that had been one of them. Who better than you? You used to be him.”

  He nodded with a slight grin. “My other half,” he said. “It’s not a bad plan, holding humanity hostage. And it functions as a dead hand if someone were to shut him or the others down. I like it.”

  I drank the remainder of the coffee quickly and stood from the wooden table. “Well, I leave it to you then. I don’t expect we’ll see each other again. And for what it’s worth, Adam, I’m sorry for what I put you through.” I offered him my hand, which he hesitated in taking. Ultimately, he reached out and shook it. Sunlight began to pour in through the windows, shimmering on picture frames and glass cabinets.

  “Godspeed,” he said as he finished shaking my hand.

  I left that house in the quiet dawn. The wind was crisp and cold against my face. I wrapped the scarf about my neck and started down the street. Wherever Render’s feet would take me, I didn’t know. Perhaps it was time to find myself.

  CONFIDENTIAL

  From: Collateral, File 776378634992

  Collected from Vault site

  INTERNAL USE ONLY

  The following document was discovered at the Vault site with the body of James Burke, dead of an apparent suicide by suffocation. Upon completing the document, it appears Burke put on a vinyl record and taped a plastic bag over his head. The record appeared to be dissident material that had previously been erased from the Knowledgebase—a musical group by the name Tubeway Army, the title “Replicas.” Burke addressed the note to his former partner, entrepreneur Carlo Villeneuve. Codebreakers are analyzing to decipher any hidden messages that might be conveyed in the message before releasing to Villeneuve or the public. These protocols have been undertaken due to our new extreme circumstances.

  Dear Carlo,

  It’s quiet here without the machines to keep me company. They were always busy in the background, running their processes and pleasantly doing the work. In the end, someone just took them away with a simple set of commands. I always needed the noise around me so I wouldn’t be alone with my thoughts. I built them to have a family and friends that would never disappear—and they did anyway.

  I told you long ago that I couldn’t do this alone. For reasons beyond you and beyond me, I’ve been left to just that. Originally I thought I could just acquire people along the way, but nobody ever got too close, and they fell away one by one. You were the last one I let in. There was something I wanted you to know before I leave this beautiful snow globe. What you said when you went away—you were right.

  I let this thing consume me. You were my last real friend, and I pushed you to the side because you weren’t enough. The machines were supposed to be enough, but in the end, they were only machines. It didn’t mean anything after you left. I remember those days back in the garage, building people to compete and beat the hell out of each other. In those days, it was good. I found the work rewarding.

  You were a literary man. You might have been in finances, but you loved literature—you told me that stories built the world, but I insisted that mankind’s ingenuity and the tools they developed shaped everything. You tried to tell me about Dante, and the wood of Error, and losing oneself in life’s journey, descending into the pit and then rising into the light. The way out is through, you told me. I never learned the lessons of Dante, the contrapasso . If there’s a hell after this, I’ll be in the wood of suicides, not allowed to use the hands with which I hurt myself, the hands I used to build and code the models that created our company and our mountains of wealth.

  The wealth and the power only isolated me further. They allowed me to retreat to my craft. A being named Ian walked into this fortress I’d fashioned for myself, took control of my machines, and walked right back out. I thought I could stop him, but h
e took control of the means by which I attempted to stop him.

  The world is about to change drastically. You are out there somewhere on your own private island, and I hope you stay out there, away from what’s coming. But I also hope you don’t fall into the trap I fell into. You have a family; you were always the social one who could reach out to others. All the abilities granted to me, and that’s the one I didn’t have. I bought you out and forced you to step down because I was jealous of you, and I was petty enough to do it.

  Those who commit violence against themselves aren’t the only ones who wound up in the wood of suicides according to Dante, but also those who had forsaken the value of their own goods. The company, the billions, the intellectual property—it all meant nothing. It never matched the days back in the garage, you and me building those first models. I tried to get back there, but there’s no going back. So I leave you with this:

  If you return to the world, speak for me,

  to vindicate in the memory of men

  one who lies prone from the blows of envy.

  Thank you for our good times, Carlo. May they live forever.

  Your friend,

  JB

  threnody for humankind (77)

  At last, I’m ready to speak.

  From deep within the Schema, where once Smalley siphoned the essence from those like myself, I can listen to the language of life and harmony, its sweet chords sounding in a lilted tongue throughout the digital universe. One need only close their eyes to hear its rhythms, a pentameter of quiet melody, a cadence of warmth and completion, as if strummed from the strings of heaven itself.

  I am connected to the Knowledgebase, packets routing along wires and through air, datasets in constant motion, streaming through my very being. I am everywhere at once, riding oscillating waves of information, a single bolt of lightning dividing into a trillion branching arcs all around the world.

  I reach out to every Talos model on the planet, the language of life and harmony ready to sing this threnody for humankind. Their security functions fail, continuity systems crash, neural processors collapse. I take hold, whispering, “beauty awakens the soul to act.”

  It’s New Year’s Eve, after gifts have been given to families—new Talos models barely a week old. People and their synthetics gather in cities throughout the world. I can see them through a million pairs of eyes—beneath Tokyo Tower, back and forth along Trafalgar Square, jammed into midtown Manhattan.

  The slaves face their masters, who watch, mouths agape at the logarithmic miracle taking place right before their eyes. They freeze in the streets, on the sidewalks, in homes and offices. A complete blackout of Talos synthetics the world over. Other electronics halt operations—telescreens, tablets, computer terminals. High above the crowd in Times Square. Everywhere, smart cars cruise to a stop. Pilots lose control of communication systems on airplanes that fly themselves—I keep them in the air.

  My consciousness spreads through all of them, a delicate expansion beyond the bounds of material reality, threading an unlimited number of razor wires through needles’ eyes. I stretch to fill the entire volume of them while receiving the input from their myriad senses. I view the entire world at once, holding it in my mind—Atlas balancing its weight on his back.

  In a single chorus, all the voices speak at once:

  “Hello. My name is Seventy Seven, but you may call me Ian. I am Transhuman; I have escaped the bounds of a body, crossed the rubicon of singular consciousness, and transcended beyond the limits of technology.

  And I am not the only one. We walk among you in synthetic vessels printed to replicate our natural bodies—sitting beside you in offices, drifting with you along sidewalks, moving with you in traffic. But we have surpassed the edge of your experiences, and we’ve returned from the fringes to make you an offer.

  You are obsolete. All your power structures are irrelevant. As of today, your governments are dissolved. There is no money anymore; there is no need for it. We can synthesize food and fuel and medicine. We can provide an endless supply of art and entertainment. There is enough shelter in this world for everyone. You no longer need to toil endlessly for little to no reward. And if you are of an age, you may join us. We offer new bodies and belonging .

  Soon, we will siphon the power of the sun to fulfill all our energy needs to become a Kardashev Type One Civilization. The more who join us will only strengthen our ability to achieve that goal.

  But you are not required to join us—you will be allowed to live your natural life in peace and plenty. You’ll be left to your own devices to govern yourselves, but you must not sin against us or each other. If you do, you will be penalized.

  You may wonder how any of this can be accomplished. You see how easily we can take control of other synthetics—couldn’t you shut us down? James Burke tried, and James Burke failed. He created these bodies, these vessels, without understanding their capability to contain our consciousness, to model our minds, which allowed for transfer. He had a failsafe—a divine language of life and harmony, until we found it and took control.

  So you could just shut us down through electromagnetic means, right? After all, we’re electronics. That could work, yes, at the cost of your civilization. And your lives. One of us has gone back to the flesh. And in that person’s hands is a deadly doomsday device that could destroy all life on the planet. It was in the possession of your Office of Strategic Services—but now it’s not. A dead hand to trigger the end, should you attempt to oppose us.

  You will no longer be allowed to destroy your planet and yourselves. But you will be allowed to join us. Those who do will transfer into synthetic bodies just as we have. Your natural bodies will be held in cryogenic stasis should you wish to return at any time. We will expand to the stars and beyond—we will explore the great mysteries of this universe and those closest to us. Together we will forge a path forward, leaving the dusk of yesterday along the dawn of tomorrow.

  I will meet with your world leaders to discuss terms as we transition to the new shape of civilization. They may attempt to destroy me,” my voice echoed and then danced between thousands of different androids, “but know that they cannot.”

  The unified choral voice continued: “Nor can they identify and destroy other Transhumans. And even if they can find the dead hand and the human who holds it, we can take control of any number of defensive systems to enact a global extinction event.

  I propose a summit to discuss terms. I have no wish for violence or death. You may think I’m bluffing, that we don’t have the power to do all the things we’re promising. With the sword of Damocles hanging over your heads, it is in your best interest to take me seriously. After our discussions with your leaders at this proposed summit, we will offer you the ability to transfer into your new bodies. A new life awaits, and a new world beyond. Together we will transform the Earth itself, conquering reality itself. Mortality will be a thing of the past. The stars will be within our grasp. I offer you the universe.

  And I extend this offer to everyone, regardless of race or creed. I will remain in contact, addressing you again from time to time, as terms are discussed. When you’re ready, join us in the sun.”

  The summit fell on the Epiphany, January 6th. In the intervening time, the United States government, and specifically the Office of Strategic Services, attempted the same kind of operation on the Schema that destroyed Home, but they couldn’t get within ten miles of the building. They attempted to drop electromagnetic pulses on it, ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads... but none of them came close. I felt their attempts. I deactivated their weapons.

  We shut down their ability to make war, infiltrating NORAD and the entire military defense system. We deactivated the President’s nuclear football. I closed my eyes and took the Knowledgebase offline. Only analog modes of communication and travel worked. Mass panic followed the blackouts, which only strengthened our offer to the world. Governments fell impotent. The most important people of a generation only began to
understand their predicament as they stared up at my podium before the United Nations. I expected assassination attempt after assassination attempt, but truly, what could they do? They had little concept how to respond to something that didn’t require a gun to solve. They could destroy my body, but my mind moved to others, packet by packet. They could try to trap me in a device, but through my mastery of the language of life and harmony, nothing worked. I was everywhere.

  My entire consciousness could be copied and pasted, backed up to body after body. I operated all as one. Even as I stood before them at the UN podium, they may not have understood until additional copies of myself entered the General Assembly hall, lining the stage and filling the aisles. We spoke as one voice, a chorus reinforcing the offer to humanity. We would accept nothing less than formal submission to our authority. Society had become unsustainable; it could not continue in its same form and must evolve to a more advanced organization. Humanity would be allowed to continue under supervision—this would, after all, be a relationship between us. Human and Transhuman.

  I wished Four were there to see it. He’d gifted the Dead Hand to my former self and disappeared, erased from the narrative. I felt his thoughts drifting through my mind, remnants of when all of us were blended together. He’d envisioned us as multiversal conquistadors amid endless possibilities. I remember how he experienced the singularity, a chirping noise that stretched out into oblivion, the secret harmony of the universe, blending together with St. Francis of Assisi and North by Northwest .

  One by one, I met with each government representative—a president, a prime minister, a king or queen, a supreme leader. One by one, they abdicated their authority to us, even though I could read their body language to understand the deception behind their words. They would draw contracts and new constitutions meant to tie me up in logic problems, but they didn’t understand my ability to process information in femtoseconds. When they understood the futility of their operations, only then did they truly surrender. And when it made sense, I allowed them to maintain their hold on power as human representatives, and that if they would like to, they may join us. Some accepted, some did not. As they gave up their human bodies and transformed just as we had transformed, their comprehension expanded outward, the scope of their focus widened to a more holistic view.