1 Chapter 1 – Apocalypse and Reincarnation
In front of a field of freesia disappearing below the horizon stood a man with a snow-pale complexion, violet eyes, and long, shoulder-length black hair that swirled in the wind.
The man then began to speak, "Are there men virtuous enough to reside in the Elysium? I doubt that. Man is certainly not a beast, but he is not an angel either. He is both the embodiment of good and evil. His paradoxical quest for freedom binds him and his fellows and drags him into a spiral of hate that will only end when there is only one winner left. And I am ready to play this role, as difficult as it will be for me, I will continue to move forward without looking back and win this cruel torture game that no one has ever asked to participate in. I am Lizharte and I want to be free.
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2029. My story begins in an OpenAI artificial intelligence research laboratory based in San Francisco. I am Mayron Schneider, a freshly graduated doctor, and I am currently implementing a new machine learning algorithm on a new project entrusted to me. "Damn it! I do not understand anything! Why do I get different results with the same initial data? *Sigh* It's going to be another long night I guess. Which food am I going to order this time? Chinese or French, that is the question…"
That's when the door of the office opened and where Ilya, a bald and very kind man in his forties, came to talk to me: "Is it one of these nights again, big guy? A good night's sleep will do you much more good than obsessing over one of your problems, expert advice, believe me."
To which I replied, "We are already less than two minutes to midnight on the doomsday clock and you know very well that what we are doing can change the course of world peace by creating the first true artificial general intelligence. Knowing that, I don't understand how you manage to be so calm…"
Ilya sighed then shook his head "Question of experience, that's all, but you do what you want O great white knight, personally I'm going to see the last episode of my favorite series with my family." he said while patting my shoulder and then leaving the room.
I turned my attention back to the virtual window of the best restaurants in the area projected in front of me by my neuralink brain chip, one of the last marvels of technology that humanity had to offer, and decided to change my habits by going for a Chinese meal. I then decided to take a look at the news on the war taking place everywhere in the world but especially in Eastern Europe which had been raging for more than 5 years now between the member countries of NATO as well as Russia and its allies. A tacit agreement between the belligerents had been reached regarding the nuclear arsenal, it was irrational and unnecessary to come to such an end according to both sides, but the recent decisive victories of NATO over enemy troops seemed to worry the experts on the possibility of using tactical or even strategic nuclear weapons in the event of escalation. My paranoid anxiety-provoking nature quickly made me put my attention back on my work to forget about my dark thoughts about what could happen.
…
…
…
After more than an hour, I received my long-awaited feast of Asian flavors and headed to the entrance of the establishment to pick it up from the delivery man. "It's for me, thank you, and hold on, it's for you, good luck." I then said to the wide-eyed man as I handed him a $100 bill.
I decided that since I was outside, I should perhaps take a night walk to stretch my legs and call my mother living in France, who must have probably already gotten up recently. It was really a cold and dark night, after 30 minutes of walking around the establishment, which was no less than one square kilometer, I was starting to shiver from the cold and had some difficulties picking up my phone and select the number of my mother "Hello, my darling, how is it going in the States? Are you eating properly? Are you exercising enough? You're not overworking yourself, I hope? …" I answered these incessant questions with a smile on my face and happiness in my heart then asked her how she was doing in turn. "Well everything is going well here, nothing to report except that your little brother has decided that he would be a politician to change the world or something like that, well you know, the youth..."
Suddenly, a blinding gleam appeared behind my mother's now almost imperceptible face and the video call stopped dead. The process had lasted less than a second but was nonetheless visible to the human eye, something had happened, I said to myself in a panic, trying to call her back without success.
Then suddenly, an alarm that I never thought and wanted to hear sounded all over the area.
The apocalypse on earth... It didn't take long for me to have a panic attack imagining the worse that could have happened to my family and the disastrous fate that awaited me. My breathing and blood pressure skyrocketed and I ended up collapsing to the ground on my knees. (It has started. The dreaded moment of the beginning of the end. We were almost there… WHY NOW?! A few more months and we could have settled everything… I don't want to die after all the sacrifices I had to endure! I…)
"I think I'm losing my mind, yeah, that must be it, it should be only an exercise or a nightmare..."
My mind could not believe my words. I ended up putting myself in a lateral position of safety while muttering intelligible words.
Noticing me losing consciousness, a man tried to call me back to reality and told me something that I did not have the time nor the interest to understand as the blinding light behind him took all my attention. Then in an instant, nothing.
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"Etheric field fluctuations, never observed before, have been detected on the continent of Pangaea of the planet Azur-C. We advise you to increase the monitoring of the civilizations present to collect more information and to know the source." Expressed in a synthetic voice, a being whose form could not be distinguished.
A hologram displaying a planet surrounded by two moons as well as a ring was displayed in the center of a large space. This one had transparent walls through which one could observe in the distance artificial megastructures assembled around a vast black hole and three stars.
"…After deliberation, we approve this advice and allocate resources to be determined for the next 100 years, let's move on to the next case."
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When I regained consciousness I could see that I had lost all my senses. It was impossible for me to determine anything about my situation. (What's going on?! Did I become handicapped in all senses after the detonation? But how could I have survived anyway? Am I dead? I don't understand anything anymore…)
I noticed very quickly that I still had access to the functionality of the neuralink chip but no internet access. I concluded that I must have been in some kind of coma and that I had miraculously survived. But I very quickly became anxious as it was in my nature, about the possibility of never waking up and not being able to see my family again. I decided to activate the timer to know how long I was spending in this damn coma and started reading the novels I had stored on my chip to pass the time and de-stress.
… 1 day
… 1 week
… 1 month
… 6 months
After a few months, I started to feel sensations like warmth and touch again, towards the end of the 6th month I even heard muffled noises. The more time passed the more I thought I was a fetus… hahaha, what an absurd idea! However, the 9th month silenced me when I saw for the first time the face of my new mother, a woman with fine features, green eyes, and blond hair.
(What the fuck?!)
"Well? Why isn't he crying? Wait and see my little one, I'll loosen you up a bit." exclaimed the midwife in an incomprehensible language that seemed to mix German and French. After hearing her speak in what I considered to be a medieval patois, this brute started slapping my ass and woke me up from my confusion while making me cry as I had never done before.
(Wait a minute...I'm alive?! I'm a newborn baby! Damn, I hope this is all just a particularly long dream because it's not funny at all!)
A man's almost bestial cry could be heard in another adjoining room "WHERE'S MY WIFE, I WANT TO SEE MY CHILD!"
The man ended up entering the room despite the three people trying to hinder him. (From his reaction, I imagine it must be my father…) I thought, analyzing him in more detail.
This man, if you could call him that, was a good 2.5 meters tall. He was dressed in an outfit stained with mud and blood spatter still representing the stereotype of the merchant that I imagined and he also carried a sword stored in a golden case seeming to be also tinged with red at his left hip, a very strange thing which I would advise against for obvious reasons of hygiene when it comes to going to the birth of your wife!
"Calm down Lawrence, everything went well, I'm fine, I just need some silence and rest if you want it." The man with short black hair who appeared to be called Lawrence at the words sustained by a disapproving look from his wife replied "Oh! Yes of course Laore, get well, I'll take care of the boy... oh, he's very quiet, but I like his eyes, it almost looks like he's sizing me up hahaha!"
(This is far too realistic to be a simple lucid dream. So I should have been reincarnated if I'm not mistaken… Whatever, I just want to go home…) I finally thought before dozing off in my father's arms.
And so began my life in this particularly mysterious new world as I was soon going to understand.
