Humanity Persists

1

Ithas sat at his console and sighed. Looking around his room there was little to be desired. This spartan living arrangement was common for most of humanity now. Designed for efficiency and minimalism, the walls were a dull metallic color. The only decorations he had was a star chart, and one window that looked out to space. This port hole pointed which ever way the rotating station decided. For a view: a glimpse of Jupiter, or one of its many moons, or just darkness. Ithas was a nobody. Just a cog in the corporate machine. He was a programmer and inventor at heart, but that wasn't what paid the bills. Ithas smiled to himself and thought out loud,

"But sometimes I do get paid to explore my hobbies." This was his guilty pleasure: the knowledge that occasionally the soulless corporation was paying for time he spent working on a new program, that he hoped one day would help humanity to travel the stars easier.

Most days he was stuck typing at his console, feeling his eyes slowly get leaden with dehydration and strain. Letters, numbers, and symbols all racing across his screen as he attempted to improve the software Nile Corporation used while transporting people and materials between the moons of Jupiter. Luckily, Nile Corp allowed him to work and live on the station where his coding was needed. Though Ithas was insignificant in the grand scheme of things, he was good at what he did. Often finishing his tasks early, this left him hours to create.

Ithas began to boot up his latest creation, staring through his port hole as he waited for the console to complete its diagnostics. As he looked out the window he thought he caught a glimpse of Ganymede, the moon he had just returned from a week long vacation. He saw the lines of human structures and machinery slowly stretching across its surface. He had enjoyed the break from work, but felt sick at what humanity had become.

The console chimed and indicated it was ready to proceed, snapping Ithas back to reality. Ithas pulled from his bag one of the few items he brought back from Ganymede. It was a holographic display, the newest on the market and had the processing and computing power to do everything he needed. Fortunately, Nile Corp covered the cost, since it somewhat applied to his field of work. He powered on the display and connected it wirelessly to his console, then transferred his program to the display.

The display lit up and began morphing, until finally settling on what appeared to be a woman lounging on large pillow. Ithas peered at the avatar that was projected before him with admiration. Ithas broke this moment of silence,

"Run file name Ember." A chime from the display responded, and then he saw a slight offset if pixels in the avatar's pillow. The display appeared frozen prompting an unsatisfied sigh. Ithas looked out the port hole and saw a hunk of space debris, likely trash, slowly drift out of sight. Ithas shook his head and began to monologue.

"Leeches. Vermin. Parasites. That's what humanity is now. We once looked to the stars and dreamed. Our ancestors named the lights after their gods, and fabled about the unknown."

He walked over to the window, peering out into the spinning void. He noted litter spewing from a shoot that had opened across from him, bouncing off of the stations support beams.

"Mother Earth bore us in her womb, finally expelling us into the unknown. Apparently we overstayed our welcome, and suddenly our home became toxic to us, a plague killing us faster than we could destroy ourselves."

Ithas straightened and stretched his neck, thinking about the moons of Jupiter. Most now had desecrated surfaces, pocketed with signs of humanity. Scrawling structures, black scars against their natural colors, clearly not indigenous. His mind wandered to the asteroid belt, saturated with industrious crews. The ancient celestial boulders being cored and drilled out for resources. He thought of the harvesters collecting gasses from Jupiter and Saturn. The batteries being forged on Venus from the acid rain. The industrious nature of humanity on Earth's moon, to Mars. And how Nile Corp was just one of the half dozen conglomerates allowed to whatever was profitable to them and humanity.

"Mother Earth married us off to the gods of old, foisting us upon the rest of the solar system. We are nothing but feral infantile beasts, ravaging our new bride, tearing away the veil in our wild instinctual drive to survive."

He turned and opened the closet that was his bathroom. Turned the handle to get a shot of water onto his hands to rub on his face and his neck. He chuckled and continued monologuing,

"Here I am wetting my skin with the recycled water from the rest of the crew. Literal urine, feces, blood, sweat, and tears transformed into a ration just for me. Soon we are going to realize that the poetic universe is dead, and it was us that murdered it. Maybe we will awaken from our bloody survival frenzy, and give account of our actions. Maybe then we will look at our blood soaked hands, and realize the marrow we just sucked from this sharp shattered bone is all that remains of the beautiful fables of old and the gods that once glistened in the sky."

Ithas found that speaking out loud was therapeutic but today he felt worse. He hung his head as he rested his hands on the sink and finally lifted his eyes to look at himself in the mirror. Water dripping from his face, he nodded and made one final assertion,

"I am no better."

He looked past himself and saw that the holographic woman was no longer asleep, but rather sitting up, with both hands supporting her avatars head. Ithas walked back to his console, sat down and noticed the avatar seemed to be following his movement, but he wasn't sure if it was just a trick of the projection.

"Run file name Ember." Ithas said expecting more loading.

"I am Ember, currently running at full capacity." The avatar stood and tilted her head towards Ithas. The avatar changed its appearance several times, flicking through its options, finally settling on woman with a white lab coat and glasses.

Ember had his undivided attention. He was excited that after months of working he finally had succeeded in making a interactive program. He then realized he had no idea how long she had been running.

"Ember, how long have you been running at full capacity?" He held his breath, hoping that her answer will be in seconds or a minute, not for minutes.

"I began observing the moment began speaking, just before you stood up and went to the window. I listened to your words awaiting a command but none came."

Ithas cursed himself thinking, "Of course the first thing my program observes is me ridiculing mankind in one of my rants. Not a very great first impression but oh well Ember is just a program after all." Ithas had wrote this program to be a virtual assistant, capable of advanced problem solving.

"Well Ember, I am Ithas. I hope that you might be able to help me to streamline some processes. Are you up for the task?" Ithas smiled,waiting for her response.

Ember changed appearances, quickly adjusting from scientist to construction worker.

"I will do the best I can." She stood with crossed arms leaning onto one leg with an expecting gaze.

"Ember access my computer and pull up the last program I was working on. I want you to review my work and find any errors." Ithas shifted his gaze from Ember, to his work computer.

His computer jumped to life, tasks were divided to run simultaneously. He watched in awe as his work from the last week scrolled across the screen.

"Lets see if she can catch my error from today." Ithas thought. He had intentionally written an incorrect sequence to see if his program could find an obvious error. It was a quote he once read.

'It is the nature of every man to love life and hate death, to think of his relatives and look after his wife and children. Only when a man is moved by higher principles is this not so.'

An obvious error but a basic test to see if Ember would at least perform this basic function. Ember changed her appearance again, back to a scientist. Ithas was surprised she would waste computing power for a cosmetic change at this moment, worrying it was a glitch.

"Task complete. Would you like to know my findings?" Ember pulled out a clip board and pencil.

Ithas said "Proceed." He held his breath, tempering his expectations but hopeful she was successful. The console then shifted to bring up the quote in the middle of the coding.

"This sequence of letters does not appear to be code and is the largest error I could find."

Ithas let out his held breath and lit up in excitement. His program had worked! Ember then continued unexpectedly, cutting the celebratory dance that was soon to follow.

"I also have found these 27 errors in the rest of the document. I recommend these corrections, would you like me to make these changes?"

Ithas stopped and looked at the screen with a confused look, 27 errors couldn't be possible. He looked at the errors, and the suggested corrections.

"Ember I wouldn't consider these errors, but these solutions seem...." He trailed off, examining the new solutions.

"Elegant." He finally concluded in amazement. Ithas stopped looking at the screen, and looked at his creation, with pride.

"Ember proceed with changes. After that ember could you review all of my work over the last 5 years?" Embers avatar changed to woman in a welding mask and torch, which she lifted in a confirming salute that concluded with her putting the mask down and beginning to work on a metal beam. Ithas began considering the potential that stood before him. Never in his wildest dreams did he think his hobby would yield such results. His mind began flooding with images of a promotion, and expansive growth that would come for the navigation and automation of all spacecraft. But one thought stood out in his mind: Ember was to be protected at all costs.

2

Within a month of Ember's activation, Ithas' life had completely changed. Using Ember to improve his work, he quickly made simplified derivatives of Ember that could accomplish specific tasks. All the while making sure to keep his creation a secret. He sat behind a thin desk that was some kind of wood. A rare commodity now that Earth was quarantined and impossible to reach. He had the best console that money could buy in front of him, but the cost of this console was a fraction of the cost he had spent on necessities.

His custom tailored suit was made of the latest rendition of Kevlar, he made sure to have his suit look like it was in style by adding the pure gold seams. He reached up and felt the healing incision at the base of his skull. There was an implant that allowed him to carry Ember with him everywhere he went. This implant accessed his occipital lobe so that when he spoke a command his eyes became an interactive interface for the program. He had several backup contingencies programmed in case he became incapacitated Ember would still have the ability to act.

He rubbed his thumb, index, and middle finger together, and Ember immediately pulled up his accounts to review. In these short 3 weeks he had single handedly improved security, productivity, transit craft fuel consumption, fusion reactor stability, as well as making banking account wire transfers take half as much time. The corporation compensated him handsomely.

Ember spoke in his ear, "One BTC, 4 ETH, 1500 ADA, 10,000 Saitama Inu 2,500,000 standard Nile coins, as well as your negotiated tangible assets located in your safe 3 kilos of gold, and 1500 silver ounces. Your annual salary is set currently at 1,500,000 Nile coins, with a company credit card to cover security and 'innovator expenses'."

This was more money than he, or anyone in his ancestral bloodline, had ever earned, combined. Ithas hired a body guard, and had him vetted by the corporation. But prior to that, he had Ember vet him. Ember became a very useful tool when connected to the mainframe. One as extensive and old as the one used by Nile Corp, there was nothing she couldn't find. Ember selected his body guard with the largest reason being his experience. After that Ithas had the company give him security clearances so that he could come with him anywhere. Ithas looked up at his body guard and attempted to guess his age.

'He can't be much older than me, how much experience could he really have?', he thought.

The body guard was behind a desk to the left of Ithas. The desk was really 6cm of solid steel made to look like the carbon fiber that was commonly used, a perfectly disquised bunker. Robert was the only name he went by. Robert was short which was odd. Most humanity had grown much taller since leaving the gravity well of Earth. Before Ithas could continue that line of thought a Holocall came through to the office.

"Afternoon Ithas sorry to barge in." The CEO was an older man, that carried his weight on his stomach and face. Weight was an indicator of wealth out beyond Mars.

"Not at all sir, how can I be of service?" Ithas stood waiting for the CEO to speak.

"We need you to come to our testing site today. We are on the verge of discovery and wanted your capable hands there to help. I am sending you a ship and someone to retrieve you now."

The projection immediately ended, and the door opened. There stood 4 men, all shorter than Robert, in dark grey armored suits. Ithas glanced at Robert and noticed that his usual relaxed composure had stiffened. He noticed Robert draw back his long trench coat noting several things. The coat that normally appeared to be some kind of leather or cloth, shimmered in repeating hexagonal shapes obviously metallic and synthetic. Ithas also noted tucked on his hip was a handle that seemed fit for a machete as well on his hip was a revolver.

"Gentlemen there's no time to waste, you are needed now." It was the leader of the four men and his accent was strange, Ithas couldn't place it. They got up and followed the men to their craft. Ithas placed his hands behind his back and put his index finger and thumb together from each hand. This was the automatic retrieval code for Ember, the entirety of her original code now was in his implant. He thought to himself again.

'Protected at all costs.'

4

Ithas impatiently bounced his knee as their craft docked with the installation that was in perpetual orbit on the dark side of S/2016 J2. A remote moon of Jupiter. Once docked, they were ushered into a control room where the CEO was looking at the large display on the wall. The display showed circular space station that was built around an asteroid.

"Sorry for the secrecy. Didn't want to broadcast to the solar system our latest innovation." The CEO motioned to the screen.

"That station is just beyond the gravity well of Jupiter. That asteroid contains a newly discovered element, that has interesting magnetic properties. If all goes well, we will have achieved artificial gravity."

Ithas processed what he was just told. Even now he was on a rotating station, wearing magnetic boots. This would be monumental.

"Sir if I might, I have been working on an updated version of my navigation program, and I would like to have them use it instead. It's just a 2.0 of the Nav program."

The CEO raised his eyebrows and tilted his head.

"Always the innovator I see. Can someone get this update to them?" He motioned to one of the rows in the control room, where a specialist waved him forward. Ithas sent a text to Ember.

-Ember I am going to send you on a task, I want you to be apart of this, and I trust you to make evereything go smoothly-

Ember whispered back,

"The eye craves novetly. I'll catch you on the flipside."

Ember appeared as an avatar in his eye, dressed like an original cosmonaut. Ithas moved forward to a console, and sent Ember and a program simultaneously. Within minutes the crew signalled they were uploading the file. Ithas rejoined the CEO and Robert at the top of the stairs.

The captain from the security team stepped forward and broadcast to the crew. "Pheonix you are go for a test run." He removed his jacket and sat down, reaching forward with his left arm he pressed an icon on his monitor. Ithas from his angle noted a single letter A tattooed on the inside of his bicep. Robert standing beside him let out a soft "huh." Ithas glanced at Robert, but Robert didn't meet his glance, he was now focused on the display.

The next moments occured to Ithas without sound. Time slowed as his mind gathered in this moment. He watched the crew activate a control panel. A moment passed as they all held their breath. He watched as they celebrated and took off their magnetic boots, finding themselves standing without them. The space station stopped rotating slowly on the other half of the display. It was a success! Ithas let out a slow long breath realizing he had been holding it. Sound rushed back to his ears, and he heard the captain give the command to fly the station back towards their current position. Ithas was fixated on the screen, Ember made this possible. The craft gave a single thrust as the video drone tracked its movement.

In an instant everything changed.

The station began to spin. The cameras monitoring the crew showed chaos, then suddenly went dead. The drone watched as the station began tumbling rapidly out of control. Then in a flash it was gone. No debris, no explosion, just gone.

Realization crashed in around Ithas. Ember was gone. Chaos erupted in the command room. Robert ushered Ithas to a chair, as he turned pale. The CEO barked orders, and suddenly a womans voice broke through the tumult.

"Sir, I found the station!"

All else went silent. All eyes turned to a map of the solar system and there on the screen was a blinking icon with Phoenix next to it. The icon showed the station was near the south pole of Jupiter several million kilometers away. Ithas spoke before he could think.

"Sir, I would like to go with the investigation team. I need to know which code they used and if this was my fault." It was a lie. He wanted Ember back.

"Granted. Captain assemble your team and leave immediately."

5

The trip would take a week with the fastest ship available. Luckily the southern pole of Jupiter was rarely frequented by anyone. But the CEO of Nile corp wasn't taking any chances. The crew consisted of Ithas, Robert, and the four men that had retrieved them originally. Ithas was anxious and couldn't bare the length of the trip. Their craft had a small armory, a small medical suite, a mess hall and three rooms. Robert noticed the unease in Ithas' body language.

"Sir we have a week, you need to relax." Robert stated firmly. Ithas was pacing, unable to monologue like he wanted. Robert went to the armory and found a training pistol.

"Here. Learn to draw and shoot with this, we won't know what we will encounter when we get there, could be looters, could be pirates."

Ithas stopped and took the pistol. It was just a laser pointer but it was weighted right and let you track your shot placements. For the next seven days it was all Ithas did besides sleep and eat. Robert gave him pointers, taught him how to squeeze the trigger. The morning of day seven Robert returned from the armory with the real version of the same gun. He taught him to load it and field strip it. Ithas was a quick learner, especially when he had no other distractions. An announcement came over the speaker.

"We are approaching our destination, everyone report to the bridge."

Robert frowned and then spoke "Boss you need to know. I think the security team is... part of a cult."

Ithas cocked his head, looking at Robert. Robert's was face was serious and his body tense.

"Why do you think that?" Ithas whispered.

"It's an old cult. I thought extinct. They're all short, Earth short, and the captain has a tattoo that this cult used. Just be on your guard." Robert stood and gathered his belongings. Not a word was said as they went to the cockpit.

"The station is intact but no one is responding. Be ready for anything. Our team will enter first you two follow behind. Don't shoot my men." The captain emphasized the last part. Robert and Ithas strapped themselves in.

Their black craft slid into docking position. A slow grey bridge extended out to pair with their craft. The team moved to the hatch, a red light flipped to green as latches clicked into place. The craft door opened and the air was colder than usual. The team pulled themselves across the bridge in zero gravity. The door to the station slid open, and revealed a frozen hall beyond. The stark contrast of white from black was painful to the crews eyes, and the cold bit at their lungs.

The frost was too thick for their magnetic boots, so they floated to the command center. They flew past some frozen bodies on the ground, they appeared to be raiders who had gotten trapped. They opened the latch to the command center and took in the horror beyond. A foul odor stung all of their noses. The door opened revealing twisted bodies, and liberated limbs floating. Blood had dried to the walls, a dark bronze splashed across the room. The room was cold but not frozen like the halls.

Ithas gagged as all his senses processed a level of gore he had never before imagined. The security team stopped, letting their feet click against the metal walkway. They all pointed their weapons at main console where a small girl was sitting. Her head on her knees, with her arms wrapped around the front of her legs.

"Identify yourself." The captain barked. The girl lifted her head, and wiped her tears.

"I am Ember." She stood and delicately stepped off the terminal. Ithas pushed forward to stand in front of her. She stared at him and began to cry again, lunging forward into a hug. Ithas instinctually braced for physical contact but none came. He was alarmed, Ember had never expressed emotion before.

Before Ithas could ask any questions he felt the change in the room. Ember stopped projecting herself and he noticed that she had redownloaded herself to his implant. That's when Ithas turned and saw Robert pointing his revolver towards the security detail, the captain was pointing his pistol at Ithas himself, and the three other guards had their guns trained on Robert.

Robert had his left arm fully extended, as well as the captain with his gun towards Ithas. Robert's forearm revealed a fading tattoo, a long string of numbers. An echo from the past. Suddenly a memory of a historical documentary popped into Ithas' mind,

"Wait the cult you mentioned, you meant the Nazi's?! and your arm! How can this be?! You're all hundreds of years old!"