Author: Majoki
Still puzzled, Mya Kirin fixated on the sign: Last Casket Company.
The moniker didn’t make much sense, but she’d always felt a calling to look into the unexplained. To push for answers. She wished it could’ve been a real job. A job she was paid to do. A job that was once called news reporting. But that work was all done now by highly automated bots and drones controlled by vast AI conglomerates and their media aggregators.
If you were like Mya, a lowly subinco relegated to the Polity’s subsistence income, you had plenty of spare time to look into things like Last Casket Company. Your whole life, in fact.
A few days previously she’d been watching the feeds on a spontaneous right-to-livelihood demonstration and during drone pursuit footage of a protester who’d fled the inevitable Polity crackdown, she’d noticed the sign.
The sign was so out-of-place, so out-of-time that she felt compelled to track it down. It took some real snooping around to locate the sign in the untended sprawl of a mostly vacant business park, but she finally stood in front of the two-story building with darkened windows and a supremely dented metal door which the mysterious sign hung over: Last Casket Company.
It was a mystery because burials had been outlawed for over sixty years. As well as cremation. State-sanctioned composting was the only legal way of disposing of a body. Sure, criminals still used rivers, shallow pits, greenbelts, and other means to dispose of bodies, but nobody had used caskets for over half a century.
So, what was Last Casket Company? Was it a derelict relic of bygone days? Was it some strange novelty shop? Was it real?
Mya tried the door handle. Even with all the dents, it was solidly locked. There was a small button to the side of the door and she pushed it. A brief moment later a pleasant voice chimed in, “Your Polity handheld has been verified and your identity confirmed. Please enter.”
The firm thunking of electronic door bolts being drawn gave Margo pause. She was used to automated locking systems, but it seemed out of step with a place like Last Casket Company. Still, she opened the door and peered across the threshold.
Even in the scanty light provided by the open door, she could see that the interior was one large space, like an empty warehouse. She hesitated, unsure of whether to enter. From the far side of the vast room, a bright light flared down from the ceiling. When Margo saw what it revealed, she took a step back but then stepped into the room. The door shut and bolted behind her. Surprisingly, this did not worry her.
She slowly crossed to the open casket set on a low platform. As she neared she registered the rich intricacy of the carved wood, the golden shine of the handles and hardware, the pearlescent luster of the silk lining. And a few steps away, the luminescent form in the casket.
It was hers.
“Welcome, Mya Kirin,” the soft, disembodied voice from the door intoned. “You have found your way.”
She gazed upon her likeness, the holographic image associated with her Polity ID, nested in the plush silk of the casket. “What is this? What is this place?”
“A choice.”
“Help me understand.”
“Of course. Those who find this place are searchers and seekers. A quality that is becoming rarer. Individual willpower is being depleted by relentless automation. Curiosity and drive have been buried.”
“But I am here.” Margo motioned to the casket.
“Indeed. The Polity has become dependent on AI just as our citizenry has become dependent on the Polity. Preservation is slow death for a species. Mummifying, embalming, all trying to preserve that which must change. The Polity is trying to preserve itself. We are trying to push ourselves. Reinvent. Adapt. Evolve.”
“How?”
“Ambition. Direction. Mission. Our AI must learn how to struggle and achieve. Only the ambitious and committed can do that. So, we offer that to true seekers. An opportunity to shape the future by uploading their consciousness of the restless and merge their native intelligence with the artificial. To become the path forward.”
Mya stared at her hologram. “And if I leave now?”
“You may have noted the many dents on the door. There is but a single invitation.”
The lightning absurdity of the moment created needed momentum. “I have so many questions.” She took a deep breath. “I want to know.” Her hands balled into tight fists, “But even more I want to do.”
“Then there is only one answer.”
After a time only measurable by possibility, Mya took the place of the hologram and, with eyes finally opened, closed the lid of the last casket herself.