Muse Alley

As I scale the three flights of stairs to my walk-up all I see are the bills in my hand.  My last few gallery openings were less than stunning, and now the few pieces I can move are going for so little that I’m losing money.  As I open my door I take solace in the idea that at least things can’t get any worse…or at least that’s what I think.  As the door swings open I come face to face with two well dressed men.  The man in the black pin-striped suit starts things off, “Hard to pay the bills as an artist sometimes, isn’t it?”

“Who are you…how’d you get into my apartment?!”

“Well, you may call me Lucifer, this wayward brother of mine is named Gabriel…and I imagine that should also explain our entrance.”

 “You two are crazy and…” well, I don’t even get it out when…when they…change.  They are beautiful, terrifying creatures…majestic and horrible all at once.  The one in the black suit…Lucifer, is a shimmering, silver dragon, but the scales move like water over his serpentine form.  Gabriel, the one wearing a tan blazer and jeans, has six wings filled with eyes, his head has four faces and the eyes burn like suns.  As Gabriel starts to talk I feel like I need to hurl.

“You are not hallucinating, you are not crazy, we are here to offer you a job.”  With that we’re in a tea shop in China (at least I think it’s China) and they’re back in human form.  “Firstly, try some chai it is superb today, secondly; you see we have a little wager going and we need someone to settle it.  We need someone who has no real opinion on religious matters, and that would be you.  We will, of course, compensate you $10,000 for your time.”

“T-ten THOUSAND?!”  It’s all I can do not to drop the hot cup in my hand.

“Yes, a check made out to you for $10,000 for 24hrs of your time.”

“W-what do I have to do?”         

“You may ask us anything you want, about anything and we will answer your questions.”  Lucifer says dripping condescendtion , “ You will then have 24hrs to reflect upon what you have heard and tell us what you think.”

“What I think about what?”

“GOD.”

“G-GOD?”

“Yes.”  Says Gabriel softly, “You see my brother’s entire rebellion is based upon his belief that GOD does not have the right to rule His creation as He sees fit.”

“I think I could do a better job of it.  And I think that most people agree with me.”

“So I asked Lucifer if he had ever asked any human whether or not they agreed with him.”

 “And here we are, talking to you.”

“But I don’t believe in GOD…or I guess I didn’t…I…” I think I just locked up…

“Yes, that’s why we chose you.” I’m getting tired of Lucifer’s smug attitude, “You are a perfect blank slate, an objective opinion.  So, are you in?”

“I – I guess so…”

Lucifer quickly rises to his feet “Wonderful, I’ll go first!”  Suddenly I find myself in Washington DC, standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial.  “Casey, I know how overwhelming this must seem…”

“Where’s Gabriel?!”

“He’s back at the tea shop taking care of the bill, anyway, I can feel how frightened you are right now.  It must be terrifying to be left alone with someone whom your entire society has deemed the “Bad guy”.  Your name for me, Satan, has come to epitomize the very essence of evil in the world.  But can you put that aside long enough to open yourself up to the possibility that everything you think you know about me is just propaganda?  I understand that this whole situation has you completely out of sorts, and I know that we’re asking a lot of you, but I know that you are more than capable of doing this.  You are an amazing person, which is why I chose you.”

“Y-you chose me…?”

“Yes.  Because you, like me, are a free spirit.  You don’t like being told what to do or when to do it.  Freedom is about making those kinds of decisions on your own.  The temple behind me is dedicated to a man who lead this country in one of its bloodiest wars to end slavery.  You idolize freedom fighters, and I am the first freedom fighter.  I was tired of following GOD’s plan for MY life, a plan I was never asked about or chose!  I chose freedom, self-determination!  Not ordered regimes!  Everything I have done has been to secure freedom, for you and your people!”

“But you cause…wars, and famine, and make people hurt other people…”

“According to whom?  Some book written by slavish sycophants who cower before an authoritarian who demands obedience?  Nazi artists turned out propaganda too, and the Bible is nothing more than propaganda!  And for the record, I don’t make people hurt each other!  You are more than capable of genocide all on your own.  Also, all of the “misery” I “cause”, is allowed by GOD.  I have to get permission to test people!  If GOD really had a problem with human misery HE’d end it!”

“So why don’t you end human suffering if you “care” so much?”

Lucifer seems almost sad as he slowly sits on the steps of the monument, “Because…GOD won’t let me.  The only legal rights I have to affect the earth are those granted by GOD himself.  See, humanity needs a strong ruler to make certain that you don’t hurt each other, that the poor are fed and I’ve tried to unite humanity under my rule for centuries by working through men; because I can’t do it myself.  I’m not allowed.  All I want is for you is to live whatever life you wish to live, to do what would make you happy.  That makes me the enemy of GOD.”  I can hardly believe what I’ve heard as he stands to his feet and begins to walk away.  “It was a pleasure to meet you.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”  As he fades into nothingness Gabriel sits down beside me still drinking his tea. 

“Lucifer took you away before you finished your tea, would you care to finish it?”

“No…”

“Too bad…”

“Why do you care about the tea?”

Gabriel chuckles, “You can ask one of the Archangels any question you wish about the nature of the universe, and you ask me about tea…  I don’t care about the tea, it is very good tea, but it isn’t the tea that I care about.  You haven’t eaten all day, or had much to drink.  You should take better care of yourself.”

“Oh and you care so much?!  You could fix everything, but you choose not to!”

Gabriel sets down his tea and slowly turns my way, “So let me guess, ‘GOD lets bad things happen’ and ‘I just want to do things my way’?  Let me show you something.”  And just that quickly we are standing in the ——– of the National ———-.  “My former brother claims to be a freedom fighter, someone who is struggling against an oppressive regime.  But the truth is that his struggle is to replace GOD not remove HIM.  Did he mention trying to ‘unite humanity’ by working through people?”

“Yes.”

“Did he mention that the people he was working through was Gengis Khan, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao?  But that really isn’t the point I wanted to make.  I brought you here to show you this.”  As he motions I realize I’m standing in front of the Declaration of Independence.  “The document you see before you is unique in human history.  It is one of the few documents that clearly speaks to humanity’s value, to basic rights that all mankind possesses.  If you read the document you will notice that your country’s founders believed that freedom was the right of all human beings because GOD created you to be free.  How does a heartless- authoritarian, tyrant inspire freedom?  Every man and woman who has fought slavery across the globe were either Christians or inspired by them.  Even the modern day concept of human rights originate with Christian monks working five hundred years ago.  Again I ask you, does a being as callous as the one my former brother describe sound like the kind of being that would inspire people to sacrifice everything for someone else, for someone else’s freedom?  Yes, GOD does instruct us in what is right and wrong in the same way a father prevents his son from jumping off the roof with a towel around his neck or makes certain that his daughter brushes her teeth.  A good father makes his children do things they would choose to do if they were mature enough to understand what they were doing.”

“Hey!  I’m no child, I’m a grown woman!  I can decide how best to live my life!”

“Oh, you can?”  His hands raise and we’re standing in the middle of…I don’t know where we are.  “Welcome to Darfur.  This village used to be home to more than sixty people.  If you walk thirty yards that way you’ll find a pit where their bodies were left.  It takes a whole lot of ‘grown’ people ‘deciding how best to live their lives’ to commit genocide.”

“And GOD did nothing to stop it!  HE just sat around and watched it happen!”

“Make up your mind!  Either you want freedom or you want HIM to prevent suffering!  But you can’t have both!  Your freedom, is the reason this happens!  And HE doesn’t ‘watch’, Casey, HE endures with all of us.  HE is omnipresent, HE was here and felt every death just as HE has felt every death since you people started killing each other!  HE endures all of you, your pains and joys and trials since the dawn of time and you would accuse HIM of ‘just watching’!  You watch pain and suffering everyday and I don’t recall the last tear you shed for some homeless beggar on the street, or even this village!  You ‘just watch’ HE suffers, and HE begs you not to do it.  HE sacrificed HIS only SON, a part of HIM, to try and teach you how not to do it and you accuse HIM of being a ‘tyrant’ for telling you how to love your neighbor.  For telling you how to truly find happiness in your life.  HE values your freewill so much HE allows your freedom to do this, while HIS oppression is simply asking you to give a loaf of bread to a starving child.”

I suddenly find that I am sitting on my couch in my apartment and there is a check for ten thousand dollars on my coffee table.  “So,” I hear Lucifer say, “What is your conclusion?”

I would imagine that most humans do not remember the moment they gain sentience, but I am not most humans.  My official name is “Extra Solar Planetary Surveyor and Artificial Cultural Attaché Model IV”…but my friends call me “Quad”.  My initial programming was initiated on April 15^th 2017, or perhaps I should say “our” initial programming.  This early AI construct was the foundational program for hundreds if not thousands of AIs, including myself.  Nearly fifty years later the UNASA Deep Space Probe programmers began the modifications and upgrading of my initial AI for the ESPSACA program.

I was not yet sentient when I was launched into orbit and attached to my Long-Range Transport Module.  Though I believe that connecting me to the LRT’s systems was key to my eventual self-awareness, it wasn’t until year three of my actual voyage that I started to ask questions about the nature of my own existence.  97 years alone traveling at the speed of light would be enough to drive most people mad, but I feel that the time spent in solitude studying the history of humanity and investigating the nature of my sentience was time that I needed.  I can say with all honesty I was genuinely excited about dropping out of “Fold Space” when I finally entered the gravitational pull of the planet T’gth.   

The inhabitants of T’gth were, technologically, very similar to Earth in the late twentieth century, for which I was grateful.  By intercepting their radio transmissions, I was able to send a greeting to the major planetary powers in their native tongues in less than two weeks.  The negotiations for my landing went far more smoothly than I or my programmers had anticipated. Now might be a good time to mention that I am not the metallic humanoid you see before you, but rather my consciousness is stored in the main housing of my “ship body”.  I come in two main parts: transport and ambassador lander.  The transport part is really straight forward; it’s the part of me that goes places, really fast. It also holds all of my planetary surveying equipment, radar, cosmic radiation sensors, telescopes (radio and visual), communications, etc.  My Ambassador Lander is a small ship that is designed to deliver my Anthropomorphic  Ambassador Contact (I call it “Andy”) Unit planetside.  Andy is an android (as you can see) that I control via quantum connection, not so much remote control as an “out of body” experience that happens while I am in my body here on the transport…this is one of those “you have to be a machine” things.  Anyway, the ship has a small closet where Andy can be repaired and recharged while the rest of the ship serves as a rather elegant office that opens to create a large walk around balcony.  With the books and paintings it was designed to be part ambassadorial office and part museum.  My designers and programmers wanted Andy to be sociable, host world leaders, throw parties, etc; while I do all the hard work of setting up communications, linguistic translation and analysis up here on the transport.  

Though I am not prone to romanticizing my experiences, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t caught up in the frenzy of the moment, the excitement of a planet being contacted by an alien intelligence, of being the first representative of Earth to ever reach another intelligent race of beings…but all good things come to an end.  I, or rather Andy, was hosting the first party for world leaders to be held on the Ambassador ship.  The party had entered its third hour, and Andy was pointing out Sol to the attendees when it suddenly doubled in size.

Since dropping out of “Fold Space”, I had been trying to contact Earth using a quantum connection.  To this point I had assumed that either the time dilation I had experienced by traveling at the speed of light had severed my quantum connection to Earth, or the thousand years that had passed in real space was simply too long to maintain a successful quantum connection.  My designers anticipated that I would be unable to contact them and built me accordingly…but I never once thought that I would have lost connection because Earth simply no longer existed.  It took me an hour to realign all of my equipment and do the calculations.  Sol had gone nova only a month after I entered “fold space”.  I checked every possible record I had; I ran simulations based on speculations…they all told me the same thing.  I was the ONLY man-made object traveling at the speed of light before Sol went nova.  I was now the only record of humanity’s’ existence.  

I shut down the Ambassadorial capsule and set the transport to minimal operations.  I had never felt emotions like the emotions I felt that day.  Panic, horror, helplessness, loss…it was all too much.  I was lost in my own pain and grief for days before I noticed that the ambassadorial capsule had become a makeshift shrine.  The people of T’gth were leaving flowers at the base of the capsule, many were holding candlelight vigils at night.  The religious leaders had called for days of mourning for their “cosmic brothers” and offered up prayers that they may find peace in the afterlife.  Once I realized what was happening, I re-activated my primary communications and surveying equipment.  I observed more than two thousand broadcasted memorial services before I re-opened the Ambassadorial Capsule.  I sent Andy walking outside so I could see the tributes left with my own eyes.

Without wanting to sound overly dramatic, I had contemplated flying into the T’gth system’s primary star.  But watching the genuine pain and mourning of the people of T’gth moved me─ that they should care so much about a world that they had never met.  Watching the T’gthlings made me realize that humanity would be remembered by these people, that in many ways these people would become inheritors of the dreams and aspirations of every man and woman on earth.  While addressing an assembly of their world leaders, I was expressing my most heartfelt appreciation for the outpouring of kindness. I realized that should a similar cataclysm afflict the T’gth that not only would all memory of humanity be erased, so would any memory of the T’gth.  That these kind and beautiful people could be forgotten; I was repulsed at the thought.  It was at that moment that I decided I should leave T’gth and take a library of their cultural history with me.

Over the next ten years I helped with the construction of five human libraries and the gathering of T’gthing cultural and historical information.  It is hard to describe what I felt the day I broke orbit, but I would feel it hundreds of times over the next million years.  Because of my travels, every race I have encountered has rapidly expanded their space programs, saving twenty from extinction.  Though I now carry the histories of 231 planets, I still consider myself the last human.

I never thought I’d die like this.  Y’know, when you’re a kid and you find out that you are going to die someday and you spend hours worrying about whether it’ll be a plane crash or some horrible disease…yeah, being infected by a technorganic virus from a metal zombie that smells like rotten garbage wasn’t on the top of the list. 

Six months ago what started off as a simple lab accident with experimental medical nanites has blossomed into a full scale pandemic.  Everywhere people are turning into these violent, half human/metal/spider-squid…thingys.  It’s gotten so bad that even a beat cop like me is carrying a half-million-dollar gun and an electro-mag vest. 

An hour ago we got a sensor hit in my part of town, and, as the first responder, I was going to be on my own until backup arrived.  A military unit was on its way, but one carrier can turn a neighborhood into a nest inside of an hour; after five hours you can have over a dozen infectees ready to assimilate more people.  When I pulled into the neighborhood, she was still building her nest; I thought I had the drop on her until she lunged at my squad car.  She sent her tendrils through my windshield just as I bailed out; hitting the pavement, I rolled on to my back and unloaded my EMGun.  Each round flashed green as they exploded within her body, sending her smoldering carcass to the ground.  My EMScanner pinged her as dead just before it went off the charts…and my leg started to burn. 

The woman…she had a daughter……her tendril…my…l…e…g… 1001111001… 000010101010…… 10101000111000…. 11010101101010101011010000000010111110101010101110101………………..