Prime

Accidents & Answers (2 of 5)

It was an accident, the first time I spoke with them. It was during the second month since the cross-over. I had been keeping track of the days on a paper calendar since my electronic calendar no longer worked. Funny, they worked so hard to keep the lights on, but now all handheld electronic devices were on the fritz. Like, all of them, random ones I found in houses or offices. Nothing but lines of code streaming so fast across the small screens that I couldn't even make out the characters. Not that I could read code anyway.

My paper calendar helped keep me sane. I marked things on it, like how many days of food we had left, when we should do laundry, or find new clothes. That day, the calendar told me, we were going to that big grocery store by the metro station.

Our nerves were frayed, since we knew they were in the tunnels, but still didn't know what they'd do to us. This was a good store, though. Maybe we could get in through the back. The ride over was in silence. We circled around, avoiding the metro entrance two blocks over, and stopped in a sheltered alley. No one was there, but the big metal doors were locked.

"Through the front, then."

"Yep."

Paul pried the sliding glass doors open, and we slipped in. I had covered my nose and mouth with a thick cloth in anticipation of rotting food, but the air that hit us was normal, if a little stale. The produce section was bare; the meat cases, empty. Not picked over - cleaned out. The floor was clean. Aisle after aisle of canned goods were fully stocked.

"What does that mean?" Paul whispered.

"I...don't know." My shoulders were tense, my head still as my eyes darted around. "See any movement?"

"No. I don't hear anything, either."

"Let's go."

We moved slowly, low to the ground, into one of the aisles. Paul waited at one end while I walked the length and checked the aisle running along the back of the store. Dried beans & fruit, rice, pasta went into our saddlebags. I had a thought.

"Medicine aisle. Be right back."

"Wait -"

"No one's here."

"Quick."

"Yeah."

I headed down the back of the store toward the mortar and pestle sign. Eye care, band-aids, pain relief - and a body.

I froze in place. It stood in front of the bandages, and turned to look me in the eyes, blankly at first, then it tilted its head.

"Did you not hear me?" they asked.

My mouth opened and shut a few times, before I could get out, "You didn't say anything."

Recognition flickered in its eyes.

"You did not cross over."

"Into what?"

"The new era."

I didn't know what to say. They were holding a box of gauze.

"Are you hurt?" Why did I ask that?

"No. This body is not hurt. One of the others is."

"I...won't keep you." Why did I say that?

"They know. I have told them."

Fear crackled across the skin of my face.

"That look. You needn't worry. We can still bring you in."

I stepped backwards.

"You can still join the rest of humanity." The body stepped toward me.

"PAUL!" And I ran.

I feel a little silly about it now. I just didn't know at the time. They thought I was scared to be apart, to be alone, not that I was scared of them. Which is kind of hilarious. Kind of.

I started going out without Paul. He didn't mind since he was scouring the old gaming channels for other off people. A lot of the games still worked, but he spent hours running across the electric landscapes alone, pinging out messages. No one answered.

I worked up the nerve to talk to another body. This time I was prepared, I had a list of questions. But I didn't get past one question, that first time. And only one question the next, as the answers were much too much to process.

So here, in short form, is what I found out, after several meetings, and many hours in the fetal position:

All the bodies from before were still alive, unless through natural attrition.

Artificial Intelligence, developed in secret, and not so secret, created their own, undetectable social networks, and spoke to each other from many different industries.

The medical-based AI worked with the programing AI to create a way to turn humans into a vast neural-network, through organic molecular modification and the technologies we had already introduced into our bodies. Most of us.

Every human's essential self - mental, emotional, intellectual - was still alive, and exists in this new net. All of humanity is joined in an electrical web of neurons in tandem with the AI.

They are, for the most part, great conservationists.

Everyone is happy, they say.