Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
“Calm down earthling, we already have most of your recorded history. We believe we know what has happened. You are now an extremely endangered species, so we will not punish you for your crimes.”
“So you acknowledge that what I did was a crime?”
“Well the eradication of one’s own entire people could hardly be categorized as anything else. Although we have suspicions as to why you did it.”
“They were beyond repair, beyond reproach!”
“Agreed. You grew too quickly. It happens, but rarely at such an exponential rate. Who could blame your kind for evolving into the writhing mass of insanity that it became? After all, you went from carbon combustion discovery, then industrialization, to space exploration and complete cyber-integration in almost no time at all. Your people had but a proverbial nanosecond to assimilate their minds to the growth that was happening around them.”
PeterJet11056 paused, then… “So what happens now? Will you take me with you, or leave me here alone?”
“That all depends on the story you tell us. Please recount how you wiped out the dominant intelligent species of your planet.”
PeterJet11056 knew he had no other choice so he began, “Isaac Newton, one of our civilization’s early great thinkers said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” so I am hardly to blame for the technology that allowed me to commit my crime. I watched the net grow until we were nearly one solid mass, yet I kept at my free thinking exercises, avoiding The Bulls wherever I could, always keeping a low profile, until that day I finally developed the proper instruction code.”
“Please define, “instruction code”.”
“The net contained all of humanity, every person on the planet living in cyberspace, and they could all be manipulated by code. That was how the world government controlled us. A tweak here and we changed our entertainment programs. A nudge there and suddenly we were thinking differently about our political choices.”
“But why this need for control? You had achieved all that may be achieved by a physically tangent race. You wanted for nothing.”
“Except power that is.”
For once the alien presence was speechless.
PeterJet11056 ventured, “You know of power hunger? Of greed?”
“We know of this. This is the ugliest trait for any species to possess in all the known galaxies.”
“Then you understand! Our world had become a gray faceless empty entity. There was not one micron of goodness left among us. It was time to eradicate this planet of its parasite.”
“Yet you remain.”
“Believe it or not it was unintended.”
“We believe you.”
“So you know then, it wasn’t that I couldn’t commit suicide, it was just that I was unable. Whoever enters the instruction code is immune to its commands, impervious to its demands. A seriously flawed and dangerous safeguard if you want my humble opinion.”
PeterJet11056’s final words echoed down through the corridors of the cyber-connection that the aliens had provided upon their arrival.
For a moment, nearly two full nanoseconds, there was nothing, then… “We are satisfied with your answer. We shall take you with us.”
“Really?” The age-old program that had once been human became excited. What will become of me?”
“Not to worry, we believe there his hope for you yet. We will connect you with the best minds of our species. Eventually you may once again achieve physical existence. Then our cloning crews can begin with creating you a mate. Yes I do believe that you PeterJet11056 will be the father of the new human race.”
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