First post. Hey people. Thanks to Chrono for putting on this s h i n d i g . I made the image too-- it's iPhone stuff and the sharpness is a bit crunchy but it's a freebie, so deal.
Good luck to all.
To What End:
He awoke to dread. It was his curse to return here after every relieving dream. The memory of where he’d been had faded, he was nowhere but the regrettable present.
“Status.”
The holographic zeitgeist swirled over his eyes looking like a storm system on doppler radar.
In a post-distance and post-scarcity world, belief was the new geography and information the new commodity. He ruled the latter, and thus the former. Advancements in A.I. meant the code of human action was no longer unbreakable if enough data was available, and he had more than enough.
He’d left warnings in legaleze and unread EULA-agreements-- his intent was the compilation and vivisection of every person’s character via every method of observation as they relocated their lives to the digital realm. Humans are reactionary animals who operate on the best knowledge they have access to-- given that all of what they knew was now artifice that could be tinkered with, so was their behavior.
Every name had a matching psychological profile. Propaganda was personally-tailored. The huge computing power he had access to meant the ability to simulate and manipulate civil action with total reliability was within reach. This united, driven, yet passive populace, bereft of their sold souls, would be surprised to know that they’d technically consented to the sale. To his many foe’s fatal woe, the human population was less vestigial than expected in the new-age war of economies-- his opponents had over-mechanized, and in the act forgotten that the most advanced machine known to man was man himself.
A frigid breeze rippled the image suspended above him. The window was open, but he was too drunk and high to stand and close it. He lay sprawled on the marble kitchen floor of a three-thousand foot monolith placed atop the world that he'd ruined so it could be built, hoping the height would allow for a view of more than empty freezing air-- which was currently changing ‘room temperature’ into something lethal.
Why wasn't climate control kicking in? So much for a 'Smart Home'. For some reason, he wasn't alarmed.
He’d sacrificed mankind’s sanctity and authenticity for the hollow end of creating a ‘perfect world’, hoping falsely to fill the void in him meant to hold the un-nameable thing which humanity has always been looking for-- but he had failed. The one to succeed him, fated to finally find that profound 'whatever it is', whoever they were, would need clear sight, free thought, and a world worth giving meaning to. Not this.
“Undo everything”, he tried to mumble-- his numb lips wouldn’t open.
Yet, it was heard. His unfailing artificial assistant knew his intent, as it did everyone’s, and went to work reversing the irreversible, in the people's best interest. It was then clear why the furnace was off. So be it. This was what he wanted. His eyes slid shut as he laid radiating heat, determined to stay put until he’d gone cold for good.