So the Lovely @xXxlovelylollipop asked me ages ago this question:
“You should make me a nice world to live in without men around 
a world with no sex, no money and without the idea of romance? You should try to build that Universe, I know you’ll surprise me 
”
Below is my attempt 
Suprise! ;P
The Last Man on Earth:
I really thought we wouldn’t make it.
The year was 2017 and the vast multilayered global networks were already way beyond anyone’s control, well any humans control but with the Global Systems Operator the Chinese government was sure that some kind of order could be restored.
The GSO was the cutting edge of artificial intelligence it would use the global networks to gather a world’s information within days of activation, in effect growing from infant to adult in a matter of days.
Of course though many were in support of this initiative there were just as many who opposed it, taught by any number of sci-fi stories that AI would bring the end of our civilisation there were even armed groups ready to fight it. Then there were the religions many of which claimed it was blasphemous to create something that was supposed to be ‘sentient’.
Then there was me. I’d made my fortune working online ironically, but after that I’d been too tired of the constant bombardment of data and information I’d just wanted to get away, to disconnect.
So at great personal expense I’d bought my own personal paradise, a little island just far enough off grid as to be invisible to all but the most observant digital eye. Then I’d cut all communication but the absolutely necessary. I was in effect totally alone, totally isolated…and I loved it.
But with the GSO and the subsequent social and political hurricane that followed its announcement it began to feel like no matter how far I went or how hard I tried the planet earth had just become too small for us all. So at the age of 43 I decided to end my life.
That night as I sat on my deck looking out over the deep grey blue sea I wondered what the future might hold, I wondered if this really was the end of it all…even if it was at least one or two small groups might make it through, suddenly and violently thrown back to an early more primitive life.
As I considered this and other things long into the night my previous convictions began to slowly fall away, I was still sure I didn’t want to live in this world anymore…but what about the next?…the world of our future, would it even be possible to reach without going through all the coming turmoil?
The next day I broke my own self imposed isolation and started doing research into cryogenics, it didn’t take long or much of my resources to find and then acquire a small cryogenic freezer setup. I located it on my island and over the next 5 months installed both it and a fully self sustaining and internally controlled power and maintenance system. By the time I’d finished I had only 3 months before the GSO was turned on, whatever happened I didn’t want to be part of the early days of the coming future, the contrast between man and system would be ugly even if everything worked out as they planned and even worse after the GSO was globally active there truly would be no where to hide anymore.
So on October the 11 2017 I lay down in an as yet untested (certainly for the duration I was intending) Cryogenic pod and set the system to awake me in eighty years time.
Being frozen alive, even in cutting edge technology is a terrible feeling. The last thing I remember was a sense of utter terror that crept over me and through me until it was almost suffocating me…then blackness.
But at least it was no where near the total mental, physical and spiritual catastrophe that waking up was. Imagine coming back to life at the moment when you are hit by a bus made of sub zero ice and you might get some idea what it felt like when that pod opened.
For sometime, I don’t know how long, I wasn’t sure who I was let alone where or when. Eventually my various senses started to come back online, first was hearing and all it told me was someone was hyperventilating and, thanks to their gentle hums and beeps at least the computers were still running. Next came the physical senses, they came back in a sort of jumble, sometimes I was in pain, sometimes I felt fear, my mouth was like stone and my hands and feet were still numb white.
Finally as I staggered from one hard object to another my sight came creeping back, all at once sending spears of pain into my brain and giving me comfort to know that I’d not lost it all together. Eventually once I’d calmed down and decided the safest choice was to sit on the smooth metallic floor I had chance to give my eyes time to adjust, as they slowly un-blurred I became aware of my surroundings.
The first thing I noticed was I was no longer in my vault, though my mind had taken a battering my memory was still there and this large airy metallic room was most certainly not the one I’d had built. Looking around me I located my pod, it stood in the same arrangement as it had done in my vault but it and the computer that supported it (and me) were now here, along with other items that my tired mind had begun to recognise.
I still felt like I’d just stepped out of the deep freeze so I forced myself back to my shaking legs and staggered around the room, as I did it became clear I was in a museum, though it was as if it were still under construction…or perhaps closed for renovation. The exhibits were all there but that was about it, there were no signs, no barriers, in fact there was nothing in the entire blank floor other than the few items of my century that I recognised.
Finally after making a full circuit I returned to my pod. I’d located two exits one going up the other down, (both seemed sealed) and four windows, I’d not wanted to look out of those yet, I was still feeling quite delicate after leaving the pod and didn’t want to add to my mental strain, not to mention even the though of direct light as bright as that which was streaming through those windows was less than tempting.
Looking in the pod I turned on my internal displays, the estimated date was 2097. It had worked, unless this was somehow a very cruel and temporary dream just before my death still locked in my self made coffin. I had actually become the first to successfully cryogenically freeze myself and survive, well the first that I knew of.
As my elation faded the reality of my situation set in, in about an hour (if the science of my day had been correct) I would start to become violently ill unless I got some food and water, the body deprived of anything but the blood substitute that had been filling my veins for the last 80 years would suddenly realise it hasn’t had anything solid for quite sometime and go into total system shock, the descriptions of which had sounded less than pleasant. So steeling myself I approached the large window ahead of my pod.
My first sight of the future didn’t disappoint, much like all those characters in the various sci-fi books and films I’d read and seen I was struck dumb founded for a few moments with what I saw beyond the glass. Outside was not desolation as in my darker moments I’d envisioned for humanities future, but nor was there a vast, complex and buzzing sci-fi society, rather the scene was simply unexpected and strange.
The sun was just coming up and hung heavy and thickly yellow in the sky, the air was clear and it looked bright and warm like the view from my island had looked, but here I was not looking out over rolling waves. In every direction as far as the eye could see there were buildings, but not the messy grid patterned boxes of the cities I’d been used to, no these were smooth uncluttered and shining towers that tapered in various designs and colours to thin points or sometimes mushroomed into delicate domes at the top.
Below I could only just make out the streets that crisscrossed between the huge foot prints of these elegant monoliths, though the distance made it difficult I could even see movement far below. I was so totally obsessed by this strange and far more organised world than I’d expected to see before me that when a voice greeted me from behind I all but passed out with surprise.
The voice I had initially thought was female, but when I composed myself and turned the figure that stood observing me with what I can only guess was astonishment was anything but, but then it wasn’t male either. Instead it was merely humanoid, it had all the same features as a human, almost, but none of the definition. It seemed to be naked, though there was no sign of genitalia of any sort and the skin tone was not exactly that of a human but more like a close approximation. Its face was similarly devoid of features, nothing remained of the human facial structure apart from the eyes and a black opening where the mouth should be, the nose was all but flat against the head which was totally hairless.
The eyes however were the brightest and most intense I’d ever seen, the colour was a pure grey with little to no patterning in the iris which gave the entire face a sort of unrealistic feel, even beyond all the other strangeness’.
Again it spoke, this time I listened hard to try and identify its accent or gender, but again I was left unable to do so.
“Hello”
“You…you can speak…I..I mean you can understand me?” I said somewhat flustered still having difficulty speaking past my cracked lips and sandy throat.
“Oh yes, I can speak everything…We always wondered if you were actually alive”
“I’m sorry but I must have something to eat and drink, is there any where close by?”
“Yes, follow” It looked at me for a few moments then turned and moved off towards one of the exit I’d found earlier.
After entering a lift and travelling smoothly down for a few moments we emerged into a vast quiet foyer, it then lead me to one of the many blank walls into which several small indents were carved.
“Please give me your hand…I’m not sure this will work for you if I don’t help” As it spoke it gave a gentle half smile and took my hand. Its skin was soft and perfectly warm like a babies, cautiously it guided my and its hands into one of the indents. A few moments passed as it seemed to stare vacantly at the wall and then I began to feel a curious sensation around my hand and stranger still I began to become aware of a feeling of satisfaction in my stomach and then even my dry and cracked lips began to moisten.
After no more than a minuet I was no longer hungry or thirsty and the creature released my hand.
“Did it work?” It asked its blank face giving the vague impression of curiosity.
“Yes…it did..I think, well I no longer feel hungry so I suppose so…thank you…errm, what do I call you?”
It paused for a moment and then half smiled.
“Oh of course you can’t see…My name is Koz, and yours?”
“Steven Maxwell, thank you for helping me Koz…can I ask…are you, erm human?”
I felt suddenly awkward asking such a question but after what I’d seen so far I’d begun to come to the conclusion that perhaps our race had been taken over by this strange advanced culture from another world.
Koz looked down at its self and the slight smile once again curled its mouth.
“Oh yes I’m quite human, but I suppose I don’t really look like you do I?”
“Well no…I suppose the real question is, what has happened in the past eighty years?”
Koz took me out into the streets and then to another building which we once again ascended eventually arriving at Koz’ home. There it laid out the past 80 years of earths history and revealed to me the staggering fact that I had become the last man living on the entire planet.
When the GSO was eventually turned on I had been frozen for 3 years. As with many such great projects as the GSO it had been delayed not only by its own complexity but also my a last flurry of terrorist attacks to try and halt its activation.
But despite some coming close, they had all failed and on the 2nd of April 2020 the GSO came to life.
It took much less time than had been predicted for it to begin growing, linked at it was to an entire planets network a planet obsessed by technology, data and the internet.
But not only did it grow quicker it spread and more importantly learned quicker, in the end the moment we had flipped the switch it was already too late, much like a thousand sci-fi predictions had warned of, the AI apocalypse had come.
Within another 5 years there was nothing that the GSO could not monitor, it had also completely isolated its own systems from our influence, (a reaction to countless attempts at sabotage) and though the world seemed to be running smoothly it was now no longer our world, we merely lived on the planet…on its planet.
For the next 15 years the human race entered almost a golden age, we were healthy, happy and taken care of. We couldn’t hurt each other quite as easily, war vanished, crime rates dropped to almost nothing, health and food were plentiful and bountiful. And most importantly of all, the global data network became an indescribable marvel. Nothing was impossible, science and art exploded and from what I can gather as a race we became drunk on the heady elixir of Utopia.
But despite our joy and the smoothness of the system it was not quite perfect, simply because nothing that involves humans and their myriad emotions and complexities can ever be perfect…but to the GSO the few pockets of imperfection were a glaring failure, a last bastion of chaos in its ordered world.
And so it devised a plan. A beautiful, logical plan to achieve the perfect world.
The first stage of which was to give the people ‘bread and circuses’ so it enhanced the digital world to such an extent that everyday reality became pale in comparison, so real was the experience of the enhanced world that millions of us didn’t notice when thousands of us would sometimes vanish. What did we have to go on? The news?…you mean the news provided and generated by the GSO?…and what about word of mouth?…what meaning do rumours have when you live most of your life seeing the world through the GSO.
And so for 30 more years the GSO fed us an enhanced world as it reformed the real one. By the time it had finished there was barely a quarter of us left, this was still a considerable number but it was far more manageable.
The GSO had also begun its program of alterations to our bodies, yet another ‘messy’ part of the human was all it’s differences and variances, no system could ever accommodate such random creatures. So it did the only logical thing and with every health check, every birth, it changed things. This coupled with the incredible advancements in technology both by it and us and the process was far quicker than I could have ever have imagined.
At this point I couldn’t believe that we as a people wouldn’t have noticed that there was not only less of us but we were no longer even resembling humans anymore, but then Koz explained the real master stroke of it all. The fact was that even if they had of noticed (and it would appear some special cases did) they often didn’t care. The GSO and the enhanced world gave us the ability to be whatever we wanted, we could change our bodies like you can change any online avatar it was quick easy and limited only by our imaginations, with that sort of freedom who could refuse?
And so in a mist of comfort and digital illusion the next few years slipped by and we changed more and more until today when very possibly the last original human left alive stepped out of the past and could no longer recognise his own race.
Still somewhat baffled by the changes I was presented with and more than a little shocked at the world I now lived in I asked Koz about the specifics of the changes that had taken place on its body.
Koz was a perfect example of the modern human…but then so would any of them have been because every human was now the same, physically that is. We did not possess genders anymore, or differences in colour or infact any difference other than the necessary alterations in genetic information to avoid deformity.
Although to the human they might be anything they wish within the enhanced world in ‘reality’ (or the reality that I knew and could only see) they were all like Koz appeared to me, kept warm by their perfect skin and the controlled environment that surrounded them. Kept fed and watered by energy transferred wirelessly and given children by machines built into the hospital towers.
The system seemed empty and mechanical to me and I was understandably horrified by what we had lost, but then Koz reminded me that what I saw and what it saw were in no way the same thing. For me this world was blank, empty, a cold clinical system to keep the body alive. But for Koz it was like living in a pure form of imagination, it could be anything it wanted, could experience anything it needed, was free to create and learn, to love and interact in anyway it desired.
It sounded despite all the coldness of this reality quite enviable even to me how it was described, but then he told me of what had been happening over the last 10 years and my faint hope once again faded.
Koz and many others had begun to notice that the years of mental freedom had begun to affect the way people were reacting; bit by bit as everything was experienced with total freedom and little to no limitation a strange levelling of emotion was spreading. Extremes were becoming less and less common, nothing was wrong…but also nothing was feeling much of anything anymore. Koz didn’t know that it missed it or that anything was there to be missed, it simply had noticed things had changed…and eventually they would change again.
By the time we had finished our discussion it was evening and Koz made sure I was fed and watered before laying down on a simple flat bench that slid out from the wall to sleep. Apparently even with all the changes the GSO had given us we still needed sleep or we faced delusions and eventually death.
And so I was left sitting in the large empty room staring out over the dark blue and grey city stretching out before me, it seemed that light was also applied entirely by the GSO in each persons personal enhanced world and so the planet was dark at night, perhaps for the first time since men first harnessed electrical light.
I had escaped my own time in the hopes of entering a harsher more natural future, one where you had to hunt and gather in the vast over grown cities. But what I had found instead was a desert but a desert emptier than any real one could ever be, this world had no genders, no money, no war and soon by the sounds of Koz’ observations no passion or heights of emotion.
It would soon be perfect, but then what life would be left to live?
And so this question turning my stomach in knots and memories of the past causing tears to well in my eyes, I sat there the last man left to mourn, perhaps the last man left on earth left able to mourn.
And in my depression as my desperate mind fell once again on the only escape I could see before me, the one I had considered 80 years ago it suddenly became so very clear and despite my darkness I actually began to laugh.
Within I was gripped by a total and inescapable depression, but it was exactly that feeling that was mine and mine alone it was what made all my passions and my joys so sweet it was a part of me like every other complex and delicate emotion and difference, it was the chaos of life, the unpredictable spark that lit the fires within our souls.
And so I have not ended my life, though I am still not sure how long that choice will last as this world it not a home for me anymore…but I suppose I shall have to just see how I feel tomorrow.
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