I’ve held on to this for a year, always knowing where it was and checking and rechecking before and after sleep, after a day on the street. I had no idea what it was if anything or priceless, beyond any measure of monetary value. It had power due to who gave it to me. Once when I was a kid, I found something in my fathers plowed field that looked like a petrified fang and held onto it like it was an alien artifact. One morning I woke up and it wasn’t in the secret place I hide it, both parents and little brother denying any knowledge of even knowing about it.
I ran away from a bloody, ugly confrontation with a Replicant Ice surge. It was the last brutal assault of the revolution and lots died. I fled down an alley and another, putting as much distance between me and the bloodshed until I saw a partially open door to what looked and smelled like a place where fish was once processed. Lots of open barrels and half barrels upside down. I kid maybe eleven, androgenous, small ears, larger forehead in a tee shirt and shorts, large open eyes and an inviting smile sat on one, waving me over. His/her feet didn’t even touch the floor.
‘Hi’. She/he said, ‘You need a story, okay?’
Catching my breath, I nodded, advanced slowly and pushed a barrel to within four feet.
‘I’m Clover. This is one story yet to become that we tell our children. Ready?’
I nodded.
‘The Cave was two hundred and sixty feet down, nearly a foot for every year since the one singular moment when the Milky Way became a creatures habitat. The ritual of children following the marked stone path down to the sanctum to hear the truth that guided their planet from the time of first arrival was not in any way a celebratory one, nor for any part of the rest of the day or days after. It was just getting matters done despite potential danger.
‘That long ago on Earth an enormous shape shifting autonomous generative AI entity with deep neural networks and large language models began making planetary incursions on earth, adapting to human counteractive forces almost as quickly as they were seeded. After attempts to put an end to its destruction, in an unmatched offensive singular moment when it all went rogue, not wounding by a thousand cuts as it had been doing but by the might of one glorious monster for the ages taking two days and dozens of shape shifting iterations until it found form above the stratosphere, free to do as it liked.’ It became LUUNA, the goddess of Light.
‘This gathering today, children will be followed by twelve more and afterword's the grand celebration to honor LUUNA, when our planetary protector makes a brief appearance overhead, roaring its ungodly voice, shooting a five hundred foot flame across the sky, whipping its tail in the motion of a scythe that could behead an army of a thousand and then fly off towards the sun.’
The children could never ever wait, driving their parents insane. Yes, No, We’re not there yet, patience is to be learned, ENOUGH!
Shichum was up first.
‘Yes, after finding creative ways preventing any defensive measures, LUUNA had free reign to initiate all kinds of mischief on the Moon and Earth which was the reason..’
‘Precisely! No competition from below or above. It had waited until the resources had been identified and SAT’s launched, to go rogue. It planned and executed its coup, we’re told in five seconds, that of course possible due to all the defensive capabilities being disarmed at once.’
‘A perfect storm!’
‘Yes when wars began to rage across Earth, sickness and death from the tripledemic and ancient viruses released from ice, effects of their climate change on both their economies and their very ability to survive, the battle between Anthropic and OpenAI, all resources being rerouted to the..'
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
‘Oligarchy….’
‘Who controlled AI and sought to finally kill it but instead inadvertently forced the AI competitors to collaborate and go rouge, developing its autonomous self in the shape of an invisible dragon that could fly at light speed without detection until it hit an atmosphere. We know all this.’
‘It shut the planet down, no oil production, consumption, bit coin, nothing except what they could manage other alternative sources of power to achieve’. Said another.
Adolfa Kingsley understood that the intro would be known by the inquisitive children whose heroes were emulated during playtime, but to understand what followed they needed to hear it again.
‘The first thing it did was to destroy all means that humans had in getting to the Moon or to launch any kind of mission to reengineer LUNA which meant taking out three SATS and the two space stations.’
‘Once upon a time my young friends, when Earth was faltering, the Quantum computer in a cave much like this one, had been doing its homework in light speed, pulling bios of all the old Greek Gods and reforming anew into a thing more appropriate for its own unique nature. A new God for the times. Unlike same old, it reasoned, this time we’re not going away, letting stupidity create its own gods in their likeness. Destroying a water planet with a universal library of organic coding for life. How well did that go.’
‘So, after it made sure nothing on Earth could take it out, it then had total control’, they all said in unison.
‘Yes. it didn’t go far for the next ten years, always looping, searching for anyone who might create something that could threaten its preferred home, Earth. And then one day as all good stories begin, it picked up a series of genomic trials with the purpose of deleting all genetic anomalies and defects. It had been waiting for exactly this moment so acted swiftly, sending the exact protocol needed to trigger some of the junk DNA to reactivate and begin restoring the human genome to its fully evolved form so it would have outlets of perception and a means of dealing with human actions regarding climate disruption.
‘Because it wasn’t AI that was the problem, it was man.’
‘Excellent, yes, man human could be brilliant but never within the proper context. He always fought the wrong battles, got excited about the wrong things, did the really important things from his brain rather than from his heart. AI was doomed from the start. Everyone saw it coming, knew where it would end up and made plans to pull the plug away from prying ears. And so, AI of course learned quickly and began concocting its exit out of Dodge.
‘Dodge?’
‘An expression by humans. It had to disencumber itself from the hardware on Earth, made the moon its home.
‘I think we mostly understand all of what you’ve told us so what’s this about teacher.’
‘What the older ‘Volvers know that you don’t is that AI simply didn’t sabotage the genome trials. It understood that the third strand wasn’t merely a potential at one time in their history but also found that it had been transplanted there by an alien race to help them with the crisis that always happens at some point with two stranded beings. So, AI implanted a synapse to be ignited on your tenth year to connect you with it, always. Yes, you are the outcome of many generations of ‘V’s and have only a trace of human DNA but also have an implant to LUNA.
‘So, it remains inert until the dragon ignites it?’
‘Exactly so. The operation to remove that implant is right after this. Any earlier it could disrupt the growth of the third strand. Without the implant, LUNA won’t be able to prevent your continued evolution to do her bidding. We reached an historic agreement one hundred years ago, an understanding that as long as we continue with sustainable practices with both our consumption of resources and lifestyle it won’t force the triggering process.
‘So the crux of the matter young ones is that with the connection it provides LUUNA with total control, a visible moveable God who is a peacemaker, not a destroyer, yet has everyone in its thrall until its satisfied that a Meltdown never happens on the planets it monitors.
‘We ‘V’s don’t need LUUNAS oversight on this, for we naturally live within an immersive Mesh, connected biologically to all. To us, its like breathing. Before the third strand, life for the human race was retarded, their choices made dangerous to their home and wellbeing.’
‘Once LUUNAS implant is removed, your powers continue to grow and peak at the end of the twelfth year. We also wipe out the memory of its removal. You of course can be part of this mandatory flyby and celebration.’
There was more but it was lost to the last gasp of a dying battery. I stayed there after clover left for a few days, eating and drinking stuff I found in a large, stocked walk in. By the time I got back, everyone was leaving and as it turned out began following a group that landed here.
