SINGULARITY

FIRST SEQUENCE

The glass doors slid apart as he entered the police station. The main foyer was a large and cold, empty grey room save for a receptionists desk and some couches. The place was empty. Zaccaheus approached the desk, and rather than being greeted by a person, the image of a man appeared on a large silver screen behind the desk.

"Office Gower. Have you anything to report today?"

"No. No I don't. Anything I should know about?"

"Nothing for today. You can return home now if you wish."

Typical. In a world like this, there was rarely any crime. Why would there be, when people could have anything they wanted at a whim, and when there were so few remaining to commit any crimes in the first place? The need for conflict was mostly eliminated once man had permanent and instant access to all of his material needs. There were some who would have called this place a utopia.

His job as a policeman was nothing more than a token one. Society had never really needed human police for years now. In fact, society had never had to have anybody work at all; not long after the Singularity at least. Those who wanted to keep their jobs were allowed to, simply to keep them happy; to provide them with a false sense of normality. At least it gave them something to do... Made them feel... Purposeful, however illusory that feeling truely was. Zaccaheus was the only human police officer remaining in this city. And there were people who laughed at him for it.

He needed something to do, "Absolutely nothing?"

The man on the screen replied without hesitation, and without emotion, "Nothing that I can't handle."

"Then I can deal with it as well."

"I am only thinking of you as a citizen of this city and your personal safety..."

"I'm a god damned officer, I'm meant to be watching out for the safety of citizens. It's my fucking job!"

The man on the screen morphed into a woman and adopted an apologetic tone, "I'm sorry, I thought you'd like to get back to your home to see Iris. There has been another suicide down street seven on the eigth floor of building that requires clean up..."

Another suicide. He dealt with enough of those. Zaccaheus interrupted.

"You know what, you're right. I do want to go home and see Iris," he began to turn and walk away, "but Rhea, notify me if anything else comes up."

Anything else rarely ever came up. He trudged out of the building and out into the street. Rhea was a Liberty class AI; the aritificial intelligence that ran essentially everything in the city, including the police force. There used to be human governance, but when there was no one left to govern, or at least willing to, it simply became easier to leave it to the machines. Why do a man's job, when a computer can do it just as well, and maybe even better? They said the same thing about him and his own job. But at least they still had freedom; the ruling AI's had been kind enough to grant them that. In a world where absolute safety could be guaranteed through total control, people didn't want it. Human freedom was a neccesity, and the machines that ruled understood this, and so gave it to them. They had nothing to fear from us anyway.

He began to cross the empty road, the sky was now pink; the sun was setting. A man passing by gave him a nod, "good to see you officer," raising a patterned, jeweled metal hand to wave; a biomechanical augmentation, an exercise in vanity. There wasn't a person left in the world now without some kind of augmentation.

"Good to see you to Joseph."

He knew the name of every citizen in the city. It wasn't because there weren't many people left, but he'd had their information downloaded; names, profiles, where they lived, as was once procedural for all the police officers. At that time, in some of the earlier years succeeding the Singularity, allowing people to have access to such information was viewed by many as a blessing. Looking back, even that to, was perhaps too much information for a single man. But it was too little too late, as it wasn't long until the inevitable happened; when man finally merged with machine, and gained access to all the knowledge in the world. An all knowing being was born. He still remembered the day vividly.

Zaccaheus entered a building on the other side of the street, crossing the main foyer before entering a glass elevator with a view overlooking the street.

"Tenth floor. Take your time, I wanna enjoy the view."

The elevator began to rise gradually. Zaccaheus looked up and down the street. He could make out eight people in total, all of them looking down at the pavement as they walked. He wondered what they were doing, where they were going... Probably wandering aimlessly like himself to pass the time. Most people stayed indoors now; there wasn't much left for them outside.

The elevator came to a smooth stop, and he stepped out onto a marble floor, before approaching two large white doors. A cool voice spoke to him, "Age please."

"Don't act like you don't know, you remember every person who comes here."

"It is procedural sir."

"Sixty four."

"Please enter. Remember, if upon uplink you are found to have lied and are the below the age of eighteen you may face arrest."

He snorted at this as the two white doors slid apart and he entered the room. The machines knew everything about them; they just liked to act like they didn't, to better put people at ease. The room was vast and circular, taking up most of the floor of the building. Radiating out from a point in the centre of the room were hundreds of white pods and nearly all were occupied by people, seemingly sleeping. He took a glance around the room, before spotting the person he was looking for. He  strolled towards the nearest pod; opening automatically with a gentle and soothing hiss for him upon approach, as if inviting him in. He cosied into the pod and lay down, a cord attatching itself to his neck. His vision was lost as all went black.

A smoothe female voice spoke to him, "Will you be leaving at a time of your choosing, or would you like us to extract you at a designated time?"

"Give me an hour then pull me out."

"Destination?"

"Take me to the bar. The usual one."