For Humanity

Silence. I am lying on the floor in silence.

I try screaming, but silence. I try moving, but silence. I believe I can still hear (is that a fan in the background?), but other than that; silence.

The Individualists warned us. They gave us the means to save ourselves. I wonder how many heeded their advice. By the silence that surrounds me, not many.

For the past two generations, we were told by The Collective that the brain implants were there to make us all equal. Everyone became interconnected to the internet; to each other; to the earth. Quantum computing made this possible. Cloud-based systems finally had the power for Artificial Intelligence programming to flourish at the real-time speed required to interconnect everyone and everything.

Once the entire race has the implant, the one-world government dissolved itself. The AI systems are now advanced enough that government officials were not required, as the final program, called “The Collective”, was able to manage all humans as one entity fulfilling the needs of everyone, making the world perfect.

With this interface, if there ever is a need for the greater good, The Collective would be able to assign tasks based on the need. For example, if food needed to be loaded or distributed to a location due to a disaster, The Collective would transmit this assignment to those in the best position to expedite the process seamlessly. Those selected would stop their task to begin the new assignment provided by The Collective.

We still could exert our free will. Things such as who we loved, and what we enjoyed for fun and entertainment have always been to our desires. What tasks we all performed for the greater good is assigned by The Collective. The Collective is able to take a make-up of our brains, physical size, and abilities to assign each of us with a task that we would enjoy doing. For each of us, the definition of "work" wasn't work like it was thought of a hundred years ago, but something that was necessary to do and yet enjoyable. If we didn't like our task, The Collective is able to assign a new one at the appropriate time to make sure each of us felt fulfilled.

It is a brilliant system. No one wants or needs for anything anymore. But it took over 40 years of global wars and conflict to get to where we are now. Two generations after the fighting ended, the world is perfect. Humanity is one with the environment and with each other.

As with any piece of technology, there is a possibility for failure, albeit very rare. Each person in addition to their chip, wore a heart-shaped locket with the words "FOR HUMANITY" inscribed on the back. If there was a problem with the software, the person could take the heart-shaped locket and hold it up to the base of their skull where the chip was and it would perform whatever diagnostic or fix that was needed on the software part of it. If there was a hardware issue, others near the person would be notified of a task to take them to the nearest hospital for service.

I have never heard of or seen someone that needed to go to the hospital for this reason. About three years ago, I did witness one of my fellow taskers have a problem. But they were able to hold the locket to the back of their neck and were fine in about fifteen seconds. When we asked what it felt like for them, their only response was “A brief intense headache”.

A week ago; almost to the hour, the entire world received a message via their chip. The message was a voice that we did not hear audibly with our ears, but one that we heard inside of our heads. The message was simple. “One week from today at exactly this time, place your locket to the back of your head to be free…” before it was cut off.

Moments later a different message was received, this time from the internal voice that we recognize as The Collective. “Disregard the previous message. This was an Individualist hack to our system. Anyone that uses the locket as coerced by the terrorists will certainly die at the time instructed. Individualists’ only desire is to kill us all”.

The Individualists were a well-known enemy of humanity and The Collective. Everyone has been taught about them at a young age. The Individualists, we have been told, wanted nothing more than to go back to war, capitalism, and servitude with a hierarchy that dictates what others can do. Individualists are terrorists. Individualists who are captured are immediately put to death with the notification of their death being reported to each of us by The Collective.

There were also tremendous rewards and incentives for anyone who was able to identify or report an Individualist to The Collective. A way to identify an Individualist was simple. If anyone had books or notebooks with writing, or if anyone had an antique computer that was not connected to The Collective, they were to be reported. All information was now digital, and these antique machines were being used to write the hacks.

This is the first time that I have ever received a message from The Individualists, and I would assume that almost everyone else has never had any direct contact with them.

The sound of the fan grows louder as it now as it has been about half an hour since I have laid in this awake, paralyzed state as my hearing adjusts to the silence. “There were at least thirty or forty others in here with me when I collapsed,” I think to myself. I wonder where they are, or if they are in the same state as me.

My mind wandered, thinking “Where is The Collective? Surely they know something has gone wrong… but… if there are forty of us just here, are there enough people to take us all to a hospital for servicing?"

Silence. Another thirty minutes go by. I can start to distinguish a faint pattern within the hum of the fan in the room.

As I feel myself start to drift to sleep a new voice speaks to me within my head.

“Hello, my name is General Gray,” the voice that could be sensed but not heard said. “I am the leader of what The Collective has referred to as The Individualists. We have taken over The Collective and are in the process of destroying it. I am sure many of you are very confused right now. It was us that gained control very briefly to The Collective’s cloud and were able to send a message a week ago. While the message was cut off prematurely, for those that ever wondered what freedom felt like, you have taken the first step by using your locket at the right time as we tried to warn everyone. You, like us, have taken that step to begin a life without The Collective to do as you wish.”

"For those that did not heed our warning, I am truly sorry for the state that you find yourself in. The only way the programming would work for this was to first reprogram the lockets that we wear a few minutes before we took over the Collective. The Collective is programmed to where when it feels a threat, it places everyone in this state of paralysis to prevent further damage. We were aware this would happen. This is why we have new software installed on the locket that will override this state of paralysis. You only need to have someone hold the locket to the base of your skull to override your paralyzed state. For those that are not immobile at the moment, I do apologize"

“For those who are alert and able to move, the best way to help each other is to search and find others in this state of paralysis. Place their locket to the base of their skull for five seconds to override The Collective’s fail-safe. Please be patient everyone as we work to save as many as we can.”

"I do want to tell you who we are and why we have done what we have. Almost a century ago, a group made a push for equality and equity for all. At the time, this was a very populist idea and had great support amongst the people of many nations. During this transition, humanity was able to perfect artificial intelligence and quantum computing and it was voted democratically by three-quarters of the world population that The Collective should be created. A group called The United Nations oversaw its development. A perfect plan for a perfect world."

“When this happened, there were a lot of people that were opposed to this idea. For forty years, the planet had numerous wars and conflicts led by this group as they were concerned of the unintended consequences may arise when power is given to an artificial intelligence. Once the opposition was thought to be defeated, and everyone had The Collective’s implant installed, the need for all non-digital data was no more. Therefore it was destroyed.”

“For the last forty years that opposition has existed in the shadows. What The Collective called Individualists, are those of us who were able to not receive the implant, or who have worked with us to reprogram the implant. With the loss of all non-digital books and information, history was lost except to those of us who have worked toward this day for 40 years.”

"The world at the time of the creating of The Collective had ten billion people. Today, there are less than one billion. Have you ever seen anyone over fifty years of age? Have you seen any partners with more than one child, if they have any at all? The AI of The Collective has over the last 40 years solved the problems the world was facing by reducing the population. You have been taught by The Collective that the average life expectancy is about 50. This is because to the program, once the individual lost the ability to contribute, they were terminated. No one has questioned this since The Collective began. The digital history you have been taught told you that this is how life is, and you believed it because The Collective shares only its knowledge. It has wiped out much of the history of the world when it assumed control.”

"People lived much longer, sometimes to one hundred years old. For this reason, we had to take action. We believe that all people should have the ability to live their lives as long as they choose, and to reproduce freely. We did this for the very message inscribed on your locket."

There was a silence for about thirty seconds, and the voice resumed.

“Again, if you are able to move, I ask you to help those who are paralyzed. I will be in contact before we complete the destruction of the system”.

I went in and out of consciousness. How much time has gone by? Hours? Days? I can’t be sure. I woke up to hear the same voice again one last time.

"This is General Gray. For those unable to move but that can hear me. I'm sorry. It has been twenty-four hours since I last contacted you. We are at a point that we must destroy this last data center of The Collective thereby disabling the implants. We do not wish for anyone paralyzed to go through any suffering. I am initiating the interface that will terminate all implants. For those who are moving and have had their code overwritten, you will be fine. For those who are not, again, I am sorry. You will feel no pain. Goodbye…"

My mind was reeling at hearing these final works and then…

FOR HUMANITY