The Will [on hold]

3000s - Episode 1

3012

It began with a vision.

The vision began with a spot on the screen: a blue globe streaked with white, third in line among nine from a great orb of gold, set all against a backdrop of infinite silver-flecked black.

Such colors on the monitor, such resonant images appearing as if painted in the palette of the universe. But as he looked upon it, the sight to him was one blank canvas. One great colorless screen. Maybe a transparent mirror.

Several months later, he decided to share the vision with his brother.

“What? That is our world.”

“Look.”

The brother looked; he saw, but saw nothing important. “Mars looks different. A bloodier red, perhaps.”

“It looks different because that is not Mars.”

The brother blinked twice at the screen, his mental wheels turning at such breakneck speed that they seemed to stand still. “That is not…”

“That is not our world. That is not the solar system; it is entirely another stellar system.”

The image on the monitor trembled and changed, zooming in to focus on the would-be Earth. It was most definitely different. The blue of the sea appeared bolder and brighter, and those clouds were no typical lusterless white, but instead iridescent like smeared molten pearls.

“How far away?”

“Extremely. We could not reach it. But at the rate the Collective Genius has been going these past years, I am confident that, before this millennium is over, we will have developed the technology to travel even that far a distance.”

The brother laughed. “Another millennium? We will be long dead.”

“We will not be there when it happens. But we will be the ones with whom it began.”

“And what are we going to begin?”

A lengthy pause. “I ought not tell you yet.”

“And how long have you known? About this sister stellar system, this parallel planet?”

“A few months only. I have researched this planet intensely in that time. It is exactly like Earth in every relevant way, down to the most precise details: it has the same seasons, and even its rotations and revolutions are identical to ours, such that days and months and years would be lived on the very same schedule.”

“So it’s habitable?”

“Inhabited. Not yet by anything intelligent.”

“Flora only, then?”

“Fauna as well. But stupid fauna.”

The brother smiled weakly. “You always were contemptuous of lower intelligence. Even among men.” Even among brothers, he thought.

“This is not about contempt. It is about promise. I am grateful that the animals upon that world are nothing near human, because that would spoil my vision.”

“And what is this vision?”

Another pause, yet lengthier this time. “I ought not tell you yet.”

The brother considered the image of this other stellar system, his brows furrowed above eyes ablaze with new knowledge. “We ought to tell the government.”

“We are the government. Those political fools are the hands and the mouth of this world, but we are its mind and its soul. The presidents and ministers may put things into action, but we determine how they act.”

“Don’t fool yourself; they rarely even listen to us. The Collective Genius is not that powerful.”

“We are the intelligence. That makes us endlessly powerful. Why do you think the men in power organized the Genius in the first place, all those centuries ago? They’ve got no working brains of their own, so we provide the brains, leave them to their words and their actions, and let them maintain their false sense of control. Their illusions of power.”

“So you would keep them in the dark?”

“Of course.”

“And the rest of the Collective? Does no one else know?”

“Only me, and now you.”

“But surely we must tell them. You may be the most intelligent, and your probe may have reached farthest in the universe, but as a part of the Collective you ought to share your newfound knowledge with the rest.”

“We ought not tell them yet.”

The image on the monitor shifted again, now penetrating the veil of soft cloud to offer a survey of the landscape of the otherworld.

“And what do you call it, this new Earth?” the brother asked.

“I call it Glorion. And see how the land is divided into two continents of roughly equal size. There are the smaller islands, naturally, but each hemisphere has its own principal landmass. This landmass, here, I call it Glorion as well, because it is more beautiful than the other; it embodies the perfection of the planet. The climes here are somehow lovely even near the poles. I do not know how that’s possible, but my data doesn’t lie,” he deftly maneuvered the complex controls as he spoke, such that the image on the screen danced dizzyingly to the rhythm of his hand, giving his brother a virtual overhead tour of the faraway globe. “And the other continent, here, it has its fair share of unfriendly terrain—deserts and tundra and the like—though most of it is beautiful. But it is not so perfect as the other. This continent I call Zoll Zora.”

“Those names sound awfully whimsical. As if out of a storybook.”

The visual field zoomed out again, such that the slowly, almost imperceptibly rotating globe sat once more in the center of the screen, pristine and elegantly passive, but with a presence that seemed powerfully self-conscious. It was as if it knew that, for the first time in millennia, it was being watched. As if it were looking back at them.

He removed his hands from the controls and reclined in his seat, the globe upon the screen twice mirrored in his pensive eyes. “What do you see, when you look at that world, that alternate earth?” he asked his brother. “I see a storybook. A blank, unwritten storybook. On Glorion, we are going to rewrite the history of man. And it will be the most Glorious story ever told.”

“You are self-righteous and ridiculous. It’s no wonder they say it’s a fine line between genius and madness.”

“I have a vision.”

“Of course you do. A madman always does.”

“It may be a mad vision, but now, because of Glorion, it is no longer impossible. On Glorion, it will be brought to life.”