Π

“Good morning, class,” Jasmine greeted the thirty-three young men and women. “I am proud today to announce that you have all graduated as Omegas. Congratulations.”

She was a short, thin woman and looked younger than her age. She smiled. The Inductees of this class, like all the others, were ready to become useful members of society. She felt good to be a teacher again,

This class would be an interesting case study, the first group of many more to come. Their engrams were much improved over their predecessors. Ten years she had spent programming the fifteenth generation engrams. She could already see that her efforts had not been wasted. This class’ intelligence scores were ten percent higher than the average fourteenth generation. Their psychiatrist was also pleased; their emotional sensitivity scores also scored better.

“Professor Oh,” one of the students began, “when will we become naturalized?”

“All in good time,” she answered, “perhaps even within the next few days. But today, you’re all scheduled to take a tour of the city. And then in the afternoon, we’re going to celebrate by taking in a show together.”

The tour guide was already on hand. Jasmine then stepped back, watching them for a moment as the guide explained where they would be going. “First, we will visit the museum of natural history...”

Then, she quietly went into her office to review their files. She had been keeping a particular eye on one of the Inductees, Alpha 5158-220. She hated those numbers, but it was the only way to keep track of them all. Actually, everyone in the city had a number. This Omega’s full number was actually J-05158-0220-15. Everyone in Saskatoon had the J, even she. His village number was 5158 and he was the two-hundred-and-twentieth person to be taken from that village. The 15, of course, represented his engram generation.

He was a favorite of hers, for she was also from village 5158. Her number reflected that, although she wasn’t actually an Inductee from the village. Actually, she was already a grown woman when World War 4 destroyed the world. She had come with her father to Saskatoon when she was 20, eight years before the bombs fell. She was a medical student and not yet graduated with her doctorate when the world ended. Her major was psychiatry but she had always wanted to be a teacher.

Her thoughts drifted back to Omega 5158-220 who had been taken in with another Inductee, who was from village 5157. Their stories were usual: their wives had died and they wanted to kill themselves. Actually, most of the humans taken in were young men who lost their wives while in labor. If childbirths in the villages were more successful, the Induction Department might have to resort to other methods.

While the two had been Alphas, they had developed a friendship. This wasn’t uncommon among Alphas of the same group, but their friendship was stronger than usual. And it really devastated 5158-220 when his friend was removed from the group and returned to his village.

Alpha 5157-190 was a troubling case. An Alpha’s first engram was always the most difficult. But this Alpha actually rejected his first engram completely. At first, she thought nothing of it, since it was pretty common to have to repeat a first engram several times, especially if the Inductee had experienced some brain damage or psychosis. The psychiatrist said there appeared to be none, so she tried again. And still his brain seemed a blank slate. Nothing was there except the basic cognitive and language functions. After the fifth time, she speculated that perhaps his memory had not been properly erased. So, she sent him to Analysis. He was returned to her with the annoyed answer of the analyst, “There’s nothing wrong with him. Try again.”

So she tried again — seventeen times — and still there were no results.

The protocols (which she had written) suggested two solutions: he could be terminated or returned to his village. Since he could still breed and hunt, he could still be a valuable member of his village. His skin pigmentation and hair would return, eventually. Alpha 5158-220, who had studied enough to know the protocols, begged her not to terminate his friend, so she sent him back to Induction with orders that he be returned safely to his village.

Ρ

The Overseer frowned. Jasmine pursed her lips and waited. In a thousand years, she had learned the difference between his frowns. Usually he frowned out of annoyance. Sometimes, behind his eyes lay anger. Today was different. He was frustrated, perhaps. He was arranging his words inside his head, that much she could tell. So, as always, she waited for him to speak first. After a few minutes, he did. He was definitely frustrated.

“It seems that a few days ago you authorized the return of an Alpha.”

“Yes,” she said.

“I understand that his brain wasn’t accepting the engrams.”

“It’s unusual,” she said, “but it happens sometimes.”

“It hasn’t happened in a long time,” he answered. “Actually, it’s been two hundred years since there was a failure in educating an Alpha.”

“Yes, I remember,” she said quietly.

The Overseer strained for a moment. He closed his eyes, and as he spoke, the word fell dead to the floor. “Christchurch.”

Jasmine was quiet. Her father sat down next to her, examining his daughter’s eyes. They both stopped speaking for a moment and let the neural network between them flow.

Christchurch couldn’t possibly be related to this, she thought.

But the correlation is there. And with that, the Overseer closed his link. He was one of the few post-humans who could do that completely. She admired that in him. Here was someone who had been born with a human brain and lived that way for six hundred years before finally accepting an upgrade. He had taken a vacation for twenty years, to receive the implants, specially designed for him, and master its intricacies He left her as Overseer in the meantime. She was loathe to accept the position but somebody had to do it in his absence.

She herself had a hand in the advancement of neural interfaces but it was really the work of Jacob. He was a scientist from Luanda, a product of generation three programming. He posited that if the human brain could accept direct input, it could output in much the same manner.

Of course, she had already tried many times before. She had attempted neural networking many times before, using interfaces in various parts of the brain. And she had failed — many, many times.

So she responded in the traditional scientific way, and told him it was impossible. She supplied him with her research results, her conclusive studies, a hundred years of data. But, somehow he still managed to find support from other members of the scientific community. His research continued, and despite her negative and condescending responses, he continued to share his results with her.

Finally, she relented, and paid him a visit at his research center in Luanda. He was handsome. As much as she had helped create the race of post-humans that inhabited the world, she had never really been attracted to any. Until this man.

The affair lasted many years. She loved him. He loved her. But, finally, the day came when he decided to end his life. Their love had blossomed and flowered for a hundred years.

“Six hundred years is a long time,” he had said. “I have had a long and full life.”

“But what about me? I will miss you,” she said.

“You survived for hundreds of years before you met me,” he answered softly, with tears in his eyes. “You will go on, I think, as you have always done.”

He used the argument that many did. Life without death was meaningless. His work was at an end. His neural network spanned the globe. What had started as an oddity, a mere fascinating toy, had become the standard method of communication.

She thought again of Christchurch. He had died only a decade before that crisis. And if anyone could have solved that problem, it was him. But he had died, and she had been left alone. Her mind was aging, finally, unable to keep up with the problems of the world.

Daughter, do not worry about the past.

The one problem with having an Overseer for a father is that he could monitor anyone’s thoughts via the network. And she had allowed her thoughts to leak into the interface. Her thoughts were clouded but she spoke, trying to shake the doubts. “Father, I haven’t seen you in years, and now you come down to my Education Center. To sit? You have more important things to do, surely.”

“You may have made a mistake,” he said slowly.

“Mistake?”

“You seem to think I am wasting my time, sitting here. Why don’t you go to Induction and they can explain it to you themselves?”

Σ

The chief of the Induction Center was a man who called himself Shepherd. Everyone who worked in the department had a nickname that was angelic or saintly. They treated it like a joke, poking fun at the ancient religions, and at the villagers whom they took in. There was a lot of humor needed to maintain your sanity in this department, where pitiable humans had their humanity taken from them in favor of something better. There was even a sign above his office door that read, “Heaven is down. Hell is up.”

“What can I do for you today, Jasmine?” Shepherd asked.

“The Overseer asked me to see you about the returned Alpha.”

“Ah, yes.” Shepherd stood up slowly, then sat down again. He nervously drummed his fingers on his desk.

Jasmine looked him in the eyes. “Something’s changed?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Something’s changed.”

“And...”

“Would you like me to explain what’s happened,” he asked, “or would you rather watch the surveillance yourself?”

“Surveillance.” She didn’t like the sound of the second option but it would probably be easier on the old man.

So they watched the footage together. There was the Alpha. He was leaving Village 5157. He wasn’t alone, either. Two humans were with him.

“How long ago was this?” she demanded.

“About twenty minutes ago. I called to your office but I was told you were already on the way.” he answered.

Her father was either prescient or didn’t yet know about this development. Then she realized something and even though she already knew the answer she asked anyway. “Where are they now?”

“En route,” he answered. “I’ll put them in the waiting room when they arrive, of course, but they probably won’t wake up for a few hours.”

“We need to isolate them. Can you do that?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t erase anything, either,” she said. “Just keep them unconscious as long as you can, whatever it takes. And call me when they get here.”

She was about to leave when he called her back, “Miss Jasmine.”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t ask me.”

“Ask you what?”

“The original reason you came down here. You were supposed to ask me how he got returned to the wrong village.”

“Do you have a good explanation for that?” she asked.

“Of course I do,” he said. “We might not return people often but their chips don’t usually lie.”

“What do you mean?”

“As per procedure, all of his implants and chips were removed just before he was shipped out again. Have you ever seen the chips, Miss Jasmine?”

“I designed them.”

“Of course you have. I know that. But when was the last time you physically looked at one?”

“Why would I do that?” she asked.

“Because every identification chip is also engraved with the Inductee’s designation number.”

Her heart sank. She feared what would come next. He reached into his desk and between his thumb and forefinger help a tiny silicon wafer that was barely the size of a tooth. She knew what the sequence was even before she read it: J-05158-0220. Somehow, J-05157-0190 had reprogrammed their ID chips.

“Call me as soon as they arrive,” she repeated as she left. Omega 5157-190 had some explaining to do.

Τ

It was a simple task, if overly dramatic, to have the Police arrest the Omega with the identification number 05158-0220. Since he was not yet a citizen, and she was the head of Education, she was immediately granted jurisdiction. She requested a policeman stay guard near her office while she interviewed him.

She started with a simple question, “Who are you?”

“My ID is J-05158-0220-15,” the Omega answered.

“But you are actually from Village 5157.”

“Yes.”

“So, you are actually J-05157-190.”

The Omega was quiet. “Yes. But I would prefer that you call me Joshua.”

“Is that the name you have chosen for yourself?” she asked.

“It is the name my parents gave me.”

She tried to compose herself. Perhaps this Inductee had not been properly erased. There were some cases in which an Alpha had experienced an incomplete erasure. “Do you remember your life in the village?”

“Kind of,” he said. “The memories feel like they were pushed aside, really. At first, my old life seemed something like a dream. Now I know it was real.”

His Initiation had been unsuccessful, perhaps. It could be done again. The memory erasure was sometimes used as a reset to the engram process, anyway. Perhaps this Omega could be reprogrammed. But there was still the question of the swapped ID numbers.

“Why did you reprogram the ID chips?”

“I knew Thomas would not accept his engram programming.”

Jasmine felt her heart skip a beat.

“Thomas,” she paused, “was that the Alpha’s name?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

The Omega was quiet for a second. “I read it in his mind.”

Jasmine was quiet. She knew now that he was something different from regular humans, from regular post-humans. In ancient times, they had called his kind psychic. There were some humans who possessed abilities beyond the average but the implants and engrams usually dulled their powers. But of this one, she was unsure.

“You predicted that Thomas,” she stopped, “that is, the real Alpha 5158-220, would fail his engram programming. But why reprogram the chip? You must have known he would be returned to his own village. I thought you were his friend and you would want him to be happy.”

“Yes, but there was no reason for him to return to his own village. His wife was dead. But my wife,” he paused carefully, a look of sadness on his face, “is very much alive. I didn’t want her to be alone.”

“So, you hoped that he could go back to her, and they could be happy together,” Jasmine said.

“I hoped,” he answered.

“So you damaged his implants.”

“No. But I did help him resist your programming.”

Her whole mind fought against the question even as she asked it. “Can you see into the future?”

“I know I will see my brother again, soon.”

“What are you expecting?” she said, the anger growing inside her.

“I expect more,” he answered, “much more.”

“Tell me.”

“Not yet.”

So she shouted for the policeman to take him to an isolation cell.

Then, she opened her neural interface at full speed, accessing all the data she could on the Christchurch Incident. The virus itself was destroyed with the city’s detonation. It had been destroyed, unstudied. Or so it was widely believed.

In the moments before the city’s destruction, Christchurch had uploaded the contents of their neural network into a remote backup system. Jasmine and other top-level scientists had been analyzing the contents of that backup for more than two-hundred years.

There were a few events that preceded the infection that mirrored exactly what was going on around her. An Omega, whose memory had not been properly erased, had been caught tampering with the neural network. He had somehow uploaded what seemed to be a virus into the system. It was simultaneously transmitted into every post-human’s brain in the whole city. In the blink of an eye the whole city had been infected. It took years for the virus to manifest itself, and eventually led to the death of the entire city. Those who had been the most exposed to him were the first to die, starting with his classmates and teachers. Eventually, two-hundred thousand people killed themselves because a single thought had lodged itself in their brains.

The idea was impossibly simple: the future could not possibly belong to the post-humans because they were an evolutionary dead-end. The future belonged to the humans in the villages.

Υ

“Perhaps the radiation had been mutating them.”

“Perhaps.”

“It’s possible the psychic powers are part of the mutation.”

“It’s possible.”

“Or maybe it’s just fate.”

“Father, you know there’s no such thing as fate.”

The Overseer frowned. He was the oldest man on the planet, older even than the exaggerated ages of human mythology. He was the closest thing to an immortal in human history. He looked young, vibrant, angry.

For eleven centuries, he had guided civilization towards the future. Even the other Overseers, most of them mere decades younger than him, respected him. He was a good leader and had shown remarkable foresight many times. But now, with his eyes darkened, closed in thought, he looked vulnerable, weak.

A thousand years ago, if you had asked him about God, he would’ve laughed. Five hundred years ago, he believed he was almost a god himself. But when Christchurch destroyed itself, he was devastated. He questioned himself and his own existence. He started to study ancient holy books and the religions of the villages. At one point, he even suggested to Jasmine that they go into a village and attend one of their religious ceremonies. He was dissuaded on the basis that the village might have to be culled.

Upon analyzing the Christchurch logs for the first time, he insisted that the villages be culled. Any that showed signs of psychic mutation were wiped out. The origin of the psychic mutation was largely unknown. The Induction Center had tests for psychics but no Inductee had ever tested strongly enough to warrant suspicion. But perhaps the tests were flawed. She was beginning to wonder just how many psychics had slipped through, unnoticed.

“It only takes one,” she muttered.

“And our whole world could come crashing down,” her father answered. “Like Babel.”

“Babel?” she repeated.

“A Bible myth,” he explained, “a tower that was built to the sky. The people wanted to touch Heaven. They wanted to be gods.”

“Let me guess the ending,” she said. “They got cursed.”

He smiled. “Something like that.”

At that moment, Jasmine got a call from the Induction Center. The Alpha and his companions had arrived. They were unconscious in a holding cell. Jasmine called to the security. They would bring the Omega to the Induction Center, as well.

“You should get out of the city,” she said to her father. “Go to Santa Fe. You have friends there.”

“If the world is going to be destroyed,” her father said, “I’d prefer to be at ground zero when the bombs fall. It’s better than hiding in the shadows, waiting for a slow death.”

She half-smiled. He had become terribly morbid these last few decades.