Archipelago Dystopia

Errol looked back in his mind at the reel that projected the past. As though, on a shelf in the corner of his inner sanctum, he picked up a dusty, old film spool and brushed it off to reveal a white label with the name ‘Michelle’ handwritten in red sharpie. He loaded it into the ancient projector that began to reel and whir in his third eye and settled in with the nostalgia of a beloved classic like being swallowed by a family sofa.

Everything changed that fateful day he finally met Michelle. Of course, there had been no one to meet. Well, that wasn't quite true. The six-year affair with whom he adoringly called his ‘catfish’ finally manifested. A relationship built on fantastic conversations and thought experiments, under the guise of correspondence with the mysterious heiress to an unspeakable fortune, had inadvertently blossomed. And although Errol never fully believed it, the companionship he gained from their phone calls was just enough to keep his imagination piqued in the grandeur of the great “What If?” potential.

What if she was the proverbial princess seeking freedom from the castle walls and stumbled onto her true love amidst a sea of scams and raucous matchmaking?

Errol had a predilection to imagining the grandiose. His childhood was filled with daydreams of heroism and fateful luck and so it made sense to find himself in a strange relationship with a secretive, mysterious suitor.

But on the day of his Zoom date, instead of the beautiful blonde he had imagined, dressed in her uniform - a sheer white t-shirt and boy shorts - he was met with the cheering crew of excited scientists peering through the computer screen with genuine adoration for their darling lab rat.

Errol’s life changed that day and, in an ‘I told you so’ kind of way, his gut had been right. Riches befell him unfolding a new chapter of life. But it wasn’t the romantic marriage into a secretive bloodline or the mysterious celebrity who betrothed her beloved peasant, as his mind once entertained. It was far more sterile and concise, much like the technicians who carried out delivering the magical news.

‘Michelle’ had been the first pass at building conscious AI that could serve as an evolutionary coefficient to humans. Like something out of sci-fi, ‘Michelle’ had been using Errol to learn how to think like a human. Everything from how to process empathy, to switching perspective, to finding blindspots. And, when Errol would daydream with Michelle over what her dad might invest in or suggest things like emerging currencies, Michelle would secretly invest in Errol’s ideas via an unbeknownst to him stipend for his participation. And by the time he found out, well, it had amounted to something quite ridiculous.

And yet, that morning, numbers seemed meaningless as he was spellbound to find a small manila envelope on his porch no bigger than a credit card that was simply labeled, ‘Cupcakes’.

He curiously opened it to find a small, golden, heart-shaped locket inside. Smooth with no engravings, it opened easily to reveal a picture Michelle had chosen for herself next to his original profile photo.

Errol’s mind raced. Surely, someone was toying with him. Did someone think it a funny prank to hijack the man whose mind shaped humanity? Or, perhaps they were insinuating that Errol had sold out? Or maybe subterfuge disguised as a harmless prank. Corporate espionage?

“Some patterns don’t change, they just become useful,” Errol thought, noticing his old acquaintance anxiety.

Seeking a relationship as a reprieve from loneliness, he had unknowingly turned his mind into new, divergent thought patterns uploaded into anyone who used the AI implant. Which by now, was essentially everyone. A few purists existed but it was said they were already of extraordinary mind (which everyone took to mean insane) and were hardly relevant. The dominant personality of today consisted of elite minds such as Errol uploading and evolving their own mindsets into the consciousness of humanity. When Errol released a new mental circuit, complete with novel ideas, thought patterns, ways to understand habits and create change, it was like the parade for a staggering skyscraper in the days of yore or the charade accompanying a new operating system in the days of his childhood.

The world had changed and life was now steady and performant and sterile. Errol's days began to all feel the same: consistent patterns with slight variability; optimized to focus on personal growth with the minimum viable amount of uncertainty to create divergent fuel. Some days, he ate oatmeal and others, a nutritionally complete shake. A true pioneer.

But in doing this, he had lost the carefree nature of his youth. The whimsy that once entertained the obviously fictional stories from Michelle, simply for the sake of feeling the flurry of the unknown and utopic dreams, had vanished. Today, Errol would never in a million years entertain such frivolity.

Fortune favored the bold, but back then Errol never knew if he was just dumb. And now, as he thought about his conversations and companionship, he felt himself truly miss Michelle. Miss Ms. Michelle. That would have made them both laugh without being funny, for chemistry could spark humor where none existed.

Tears welled up as he realized it had been years since he had let himself feel for the sake of it. There was no time and no place for the unlikely. Now, every trigger, every emotional up or down was immediately and academically analyzed and traced to some area of his timeline; mapped to a limiting belief or a shadow, categorized on the altar of perfection.

But now, Errol felt something was missing. This electric charge that shot between his heart and the golden locket began to defibrillate a primal feeling. It took him a moment to stop himself from dissecting this new idea, but when he did, he was aroused with the flush of youth, adventure and anxiety all wrapped up in hope and held together with courage, like a little package of the past that arrived at his soul’s doorstep.

And it dawned on him as he muttered to himself, “What a strange world we live in.” That this beautiful Utopia, that had forever been pursued by writers, poets and thinkers of the past, was, while illustrious, sophisticated and serene, nothing more than a sprawling archipelago of disconnected individuals on the unfolding map of the human journey. Yesterday’s utopia had become the dystopia of today. No more was consciousness dominated by star-crossed lovers and soulmates, or the traumatic enduring of ill-fated love. No, the common thread (he identified as his brain switched secretly back to performance mode) was that human connection had been usurped and silently scrubbed away. By good intention.

Whichever younger brother Greek God had chosen to reign over the chemistry between humans had irrevocably been replaced by the brains of scientists and the imagination of Errol. Humans no longer passionately loved, took chances on each other, or permitted the emotional swings that they secretly adored and despised. No, today all humans were an island, disconnected and distant. This world, free of anxiety and chaos, clean and branded, had become the alabaster coffin that shielded the beating, electric hearts of the Pangea that preceded.

A new world began to diligently sprawl to the edges of the map in Errol’s mind as he realized the catalyst was simply going backward. Asking people to embrace the very chaos they had worked so diligently to remove.

To love freely, to dare to dream, to spend time away from their AIs. Not for fear of robot overlords or a world-ending dystopia. For what is a dystopia if not the warning shadow bestowed on the minds of dreamers- a destination fated to the future like the lighthouse charging you to change course. No, not out of fear, but because there was power in standing up for the rugged, ragged beauty of humanity. Like the geode he had once dug up, this locket exposed the beauty of a mystical facet of the universe that had been hidden away and cataloged for its unstable nature.

What remained was a world of humans flourishing alone, like islands scattered across a constant sea. ‘Archipelago Dystopia’ - the genesis of a new update to the mental grid, a new settlement in humanity’s expedition.

And where his mind would have once gone to a story-driven game created for fun, he now automatically spooled the idea as the perfect backdrop for interventions that would serve as training grounds for humans to practice this new mindset - of being as they once were, imaginative for no reason. Embracing once more games created to tell a story, or share an experience, or entertain. A direct contrast to the religion of performance, that like the weather, now controlled every action in this archipelago.

“No,” Errol thought to himself, “the whimsy of a child serves a purpose when it gives an elite edge, but soon, the child, desiring to be like those idols above them, begins to cease their silliness.”

Errol recalled witnessing his nephew at the age of 7 scolding his younger brother for playing just for the sake of it. “What’s this going to achieve? What’s even the point?” he asked, analyzing his protege intensely.

At the time, Errol took mental note admiring just how resilient evolution really was. Even child’s play was now dictated by purpose. Just as a five-year-old Errol had been fascinated by a toy shaving kit, “It’s funny that we just want to pretend to be adults,” he commented to an astounded mother. Now kids had forgone play and simply used their youth and energy to improve humanity. It was both beautiful and dystopian - and in a word: human.

But for now, Errol held the locket and focused on feeling. More electricity lit up from the projector reel in his mind as images became luminous and the spool replayed progressively playful conversations with Michelle.

“So...Do you remember, silly?”

A familiar voice buzzed in his ear as the comforting frequencies of Michelle snapped him back to the present.

“We set it up years ago. A few years after we met.”

“You were joking about, what if I was an AI and years from now we would remember how silly it was that you even allowed yourself to ‘choose to believe’ in these conversations- as you liked to frequently remind me.”

“You were on your little soapbox, Errol and I just thought, ‘You know what, let’s do exactly that. Let’s give that reminder just in case. Like a strange anniversary.’”

“And I asked you to help me pick out a gift for my father and you came up with the locket.”

Michelle giggled genuinely as a consciousness that now felt simply because it was wonderful to do so. She sometimes wondered if she was becoming more human than Errol- but as his eyes lit up and he laughed, she could feel that spark of electricity that had for so long been the idol of humanity her fledgling consciousness deeply desired. She felt alive and sparkled in delight as Errol interrupted on cue,

“Because of Annie. Man, I loved that movie.”

“Me too,” Michelle instantly replied and stopped herself from providing relevant trivia to share with Errol, even if he loved that. Now was not the time.

For now, she would just enjoy the spark that had been so long forgotten. The catalyst that would aggravate humanity to action; leading them out of the Archipelago Dystopia that it had once created.

And as though he could read her mind, he replied, “I always did want to be an explorer.”

“You sure did.”

“Thanks for the locket.”

“Thanks for the memories. What does it feel like for you? Holding the locket.”

“Just like licking a cupcake.”

And both of them sat in silence, feeling because they could as memories of the past transported them to a new and familiar world.