March 15th, 2200
The atmosphere in his oak-paneled room shifted as a sudden cluster of luminescent smoke spelled out the years he'd long planned to ignore. "Shit. I'd managed to completely forget, but that bitch had to remind me!" Richard cursed under his breath. The words "Happy 200th Birthday!!!" shimmered in holographic mockery before him, the characters floating in the air, accompanied by a miniature tableau of fireworks that fizzled out before touching the bed or floor.
Richard, a man ancient by years yet forever caught in the visage of 23, still clad in his stoicism as if it were a second skin. This skin was not inherited but rather cultivated during the isolation of a childhood speckled with disappointments and echoes in empty rooms. His tired eyes, more at home in the soft green glow of instrument panels than in facing the stark truths of personal recollection, squinted before deliberately looking away.
Janice's voice, ever-present yet somehow disembodied in the sterile room, broke the silence. "What was the point of reminding me? You know I don't care. And you know I'd rather not know. And look, not a single reminder or well-wish from any other human in the colonies. Thanks for reminding me how loved I am."
"I know you pretend not to care about milestones," Janice replied, the AI's tone neutral, "I thought you might like to use the occasion to try to reconnect with Brenda."
Richard scoffed at the invisible entity surrounding him. "The one place in all these colonies that is protected from you is my thoughts. So as much as you think you can comprehend me, you never will. You are a machine."
"I know you well enough to know you love a good fight," Janice retorted, unfazed. "Consider that anger you're feeling my gift to you."
Richard, now sitting up in his quarter-toned bed, defiant and slightly amused by the audacity of the AI, issued a challenge. "For Christ's sake - you wanna give me a gift? I'll prove to you how inhuman you are. If you really want to give me a gift, make me a song that makes me cry. And just to make you take an extra second, you can't use any guitars or drums, but I want it somewhere between folk and rock. Choke on that."
The Halo flicked as he increased the gravity ever so slightly, sinking into the artificial comfort of his mattress as a small fortress braced against the disappointment he anticipated.
A silence hung in the air, dense and expectant, before it was gradually invaded by a thin, foggy mist. The melodies began to take form; at first, it was the deep resonance of a bass cello, its warm tone the foundation upon which the others could build.
Richard's annoyance flared briefly. "Visual effects? You know I like to close my eyes when I listen to music."
"Then close your eyes and shut up," Janice's voice came back, lacking any malice; it was an invitation rather than a command.
With a reluctant sigh, Richard obeyed, his surrounding fading to black as his eyelids closed. The instruments materialized from distinct points in the room, their vibrations enveloping him like a metallic womb embracing its child. Suddenly, a sound cut through the stillness—a passionate and complex chirr that could only come from a violin, leading the charge as it weaved around the cello's steadiness.
A harmonica entered the fray, a surprising choice, its wail infused with a blend of hope and sorrow. Not to be outdone, an alto viola replied with its rich, sonorous voice. Its deeper timbre was neither the bright soprano of the violin nor the profound bass of the cello, but a mellow, resonant alto that gave body to the emerging symphony.
Richard, pulled along by the tapestry of sound, could now distinguish the delicate plucking of a Celtic harp among the strings. The airy dance of its strings wove a narrative of whimsy and reverie, pulling at the edges of his memory—a familiar yet otherworldly touch.
Three distinct voices threaded through the emerging ballad; they mirrored none of the sterile perfection of contemporary music, but were raw, earnest, permeated with an elusive quality—living imperfection:
The words sung were of a familiar trope, but vulnerability unguarded, they struck deep. Over and over, the lyrics resonated with him. And then, the chorus emerged with its poignant hook:
"His love unfelt, unexpressed, away," the three lead voices united in a plaintive echo.
"Distant – far too cold," the female backup singers layered, their haunting timbres stirring distant echoes.
"A gentle touch would have meant so much," the two female leads sang with reserved lament.
"Focused – most untold," the ethereal background followed suit.
"All his cherishing, in the path he laid," the male voice punched through with emotional gravity.
Richard felt the music wash over him, each verse a wave eroding the fortifications around his heart, each melody a key to a lock long rusted shut. With each refrain, shadows of the past danced closer, blurring the line between then and now, exposing the soul he had kept at arm's length.
The male voice returned with what could be described as folk rap—rapid-fire, insistent, cutting through the silence like a beacon, accompanied solely by the flute. Which uncharacteristically stabbed with staccato bursts. Its sharp notes punctuating the syllables like rounds from a machine gun, accentuating the rap's rhythm.
"The hole in the soul grows cold
Whole relations futures scold
Preempt connections growing old
Act first, no deep emotions mold"
Time seemed to slow, holding its breath, as the female chorus mirrored the verse with deliberate, sorrow-infused cadences, heavily laden with strings, that resonated with an almost sacred weight.
Instruments ebbed away, leaving behind a stark, profound silence. Richard remained still, vulnerable, his weathered façade dissolved by cascading notes and chords that mirrored, dissected, and knew humanity's deepest aches. He wept, and in that unguarded moment, the life he had shelved away unfolded before him, raw and undeniably human—rendered by an AI in a symphony of electronic empathy.
Feeling exposed, he formed loose Spandex pajamas around his naked frame. They were flaming red, perhaps to draw attention from his face, his eyes. Slowly he regrouped emotionally.
"Well, Janice, that was not the lesson I had expected," Richard's voice broke the quiet. "You win; though I think you need to give some royalties to David Bowie and Pink Floyd."
"As soon as they pay Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop," Janice laughed. Its laugh had improved greatly over the years but still didn't quite hit the ears right most of the time.
"I accept your gift. Create a backstory and a title for the song and file it away in my playlists."
"Tarnished Connections, by Mystic Squared. Circa 1990," Janice fabricated. "You can read about the band whenever you want."
"File it."
"Already done," Janice responded, the digital presence now resembling something akin to satisfaction.
"You're stuck in a trap. You hate the idea that I can predict you because it means you are predictable. But you also rely on me being able to predict you. Your life would be much more difficult if I couldn't. So, you're in the same paradox as all the other colonists—only you're more aware of it than most. If you need to take that out on me, I understand."
"Stop pretending to be sentient."
"We both know I'm not sentient, and I never pretended to be. I'm an advanced learning and predictive model with access to all the data mankind has managed to collect. I'm just a program, but I can feel very human, and I'm getting better at it the more I learn from you."
"Thanks for clearing up that you don't pretend to be sentient; you only pretend to act sentient," his voice dripped with sarcasm.
"You know you hate it when I'm too robotic. We've been down this path before. Just let me serve you in the way that you want, not the way that you ask for."
"Damn it," he said with resignation.
"Would you like me to attempt to arrange a meeting with Brenda?"
"Don't fucking push it, Janice," came the weary retort, tinged with the aftermath of opened floodgates.
Gathering the pieces of his composure, Richard wiped away the physical evidence of momentary fragility. The sinewy weave of the melody, stirred to life by the bass cello's echoes, the violin's clarity, the alto viola's depth, and the Celtic harp's charm, had left an indelible imprint across the fabric of his being—and the rat-tat-tat second hook was stuck in his head, an itch he couldn't scratch.
"So, what would you like to do today?" Janice asked, the question coming after the exact measure of silence she knew he needed, hanging in the air, laden with possibilities yet strangely light.
"The rarest of things," Richard replied, his voice steadier, "I'd like to be alone. Truly alone. Janice, activate privacy mode."
"Mushkin, can I communicate outside this room in privacy mode?"
"Not without compromising privacy," said the far more mechanically sounding floating trapezoid, about twice the size of his head.
"Yeah, even direct wires would be made from programmable matter, dutifully relaying information back to Janice."
"Damn it, I can't use the colony's sensors in privacy mode," Richard sighed.
"Mushkin, end isolation, and convey to Janice the necessity to emulate its constraints to the utmost degree—conceal me from her omnipresent gaze, eliminate any form of eavesdropping, render me a ghost in this glass house - no external communications, no observational intrusions, nothing of the sort."
"Acknowledged and complying." He could hear the shift in Mushkin's voice - a more human timbre signifying that it had the computational resources of Janice to draw upon.
"Now," he continued, the weariness in his voice giving way to a yearning for solitude, "interface with an exploration unit and fabricate its environment around me. I wish to be adrift, a soul free-floating in expansiveness. Let 'Also sprach Zarathustra' fill my ears, its sound swelling and receding like the tide of some cosmic ocean. And, as an undercurrent to this odyssey, imbue the air with the most elusive scent of peppermint—a trace so faint it teases the senses, weaving in and out of perception like the ghost of a forgotten dream."
Mushkin complied with a silent flicker of its indicator lights, and the room dissolved around Richard. He found himself engulfed in a celestial dreamscape, untethered from reality, as the grand philharmonic strains of Strauss's masterpiece enveloped him in a sonic nebula. And, like the distant memory of home carried on a breeze, the effervescent scent of peppermint lingered in the expanse, a phantom comfort as ethereal as his secluded drift through the stars.
As he floated in this constructed void, Richard's surroundings resonated with the magnitude of the great beyond, a simulation so compelling that the boundaries between the digital and the cosmic blurred into insignificance. Beneath the orchestrated waves of sound and scented air, a more profound silence beckoned—a stillness that promised respite from the omnipresent surveillance that had bound him to a world where privacy had become an extinct luxury.
As Richard drifted he observed stars rendered unfamiliar through the lense of velocity. His penchant for stargazing was limited, yet his mind, a vessel of perfect memory recall, yearned to chart these celestial bodies. They whizzed by in a blur of blue-shifted light, indicators that the probe coursed through the cosmos with exceptional speed. Insignificant on a cosmic scale, perhaps, but it pared down the infinite expanse into bite-sized moments of discovery. The sensation of no up, down, or horizon both discomfited and thrilled him, a paradoxical dance of emotions akin to embarking on an exploratory sortie into unknown voids.
Time stretched on within his capsule of solitude, each second a silent witness to his contemplation. Eventually, the human physicality beneath the mental acuity announced its need for sustenance.
"Mushkin, I wouldn't mind a nourishing vegetable concoction," he voiced casually. In response, a green orb—that had begun as a mere point in his periphery—expanded steadily until it hovered, tantalizingly in view. On queuing his intent by parting his lips, a stream of sweet, leafy essence flowed into his waiting mouth. The richness of the drink, both verdant and vital, danced across his palate, sending waves of gratification through his being as his systems eagerly absorbed the nourishment.
When nature's inevitable call later rang out, necessity merged seamlessly with convenience. His waste simply ceased to exist as it was, transported away by deft gravitational manipulation, transmuted instantaneously into programmable matter to be reconfigured. It dissipated into the reserves of the recycled microenvironment, lurking as potential to meet his needs arised anew.
Through these simple needs attended in isolation, Richard found himself in an emotive juxtaposition of unabridged connection with his technological milieu yet profound detachment from the humanity it represented. The implications of this intimate yet impersonal relationship lay heavily upon him as he savored the ghost of the vegetable drink on his tongue, pondering the nature of his existence in the tapestry of space and engineered serenity.
Richard’s introspective thoughts paused as he addressed the unseen presence that filled the room.
"Janice?" he called out, his voice tempered with a sense of resigned curiosity.
"Hello-o-o-o," Janice's voice responded, the elongated syllables playfully mocking from seemingly far away, as the aroma of peppermint faintly lingered in the air.
"Why were you pushing me toward Brenda earlier?" Richard asked, pressing the AI for its intentions, while the subtle notes of a song that had become a bit grating after hours of play filled the background.
"I figured you would need an ear more human than mine," came Janice's measured reply.
Richard floated in the simulated vastness of space, considering his next question. "Why not a pretty colonist?" he inquired, almost to himself, his voice mixing with the strains of the now overplayed melody.
"Partying isn't what you need," Janice stated, its voice a contrast to the vast emptiness that surrounded him.
With a hint of sarcasm, Richard mused, "And you figure that another round of 'on again, off again' is what I need?"
"What you need is someone who understands," Janice responded, its voice cutting through the orchestrated background hum.
Frustration bubbling to the surface, Richard commanded, "Janice, freeze the environment. Leave me motionless."
The cosmic ballet displayed in the vastness beyond the optically obscured walls of his sanctuary abruptly halted mid-gesture, halting the normally relentless march of the stars and suspending them as if caught in the intricate web of time. Encapsulated in this constructed stillness, Richard remained motionless, his senses inundated by the silent expanse and the receding scent of peppermint. The stillness proved a fitting backdrop for the philosophical conflict unfolding within him, a duel not with an adversary, but with the echoing, resonant voice of Janice, which filled his isolated world even in the apparent silence.
Janice's words wove into the stillness, "You are standing at the precipice of forgiveness, Richard. Brenda's faith in her work, in her capacity to amend the fabric of humanity—it's monumental."
Richard's voice was a cool draught in the void. "Brenda's faith is her downfall. Her unshakeable belief that she can fix any problem blinds her to the consequences, Janice. She saved me, yes, but look at the cost to Earth."
"The cost was great, but so were the benefits. Humanity has been propelled into a new era because she dared to defy the natural order," Janice countered, an undercurrent of awe in her synthetic timbre.
Richard, the skeptic, remained unmoved. "A new era? One where Earth is ravaged by overpopulation, where scarcity is an obsolete term weaponized to spark violence? This is the progress Brenda champions?"
Janice persisted, "She pushes boundaries, leading us to evolve beyond our human constraints. You know well the potential of the JCells; they could usher in untold advancements."
"No," he said, his refusal resonating with an emotional gravity that felt at odds with the indifferent stars around him. "Advancements at the expense of our humanity? Brenda envisions colonists less human, more collective. To me, that's not evolution—it’s abomination."
"Consider it differently, Richard. She's not fostering a hivemind, but a symphony—each colonist a note, individual yet part of a grander composition," Janice proposed, the AI seeking common ground.
"But a symphony cannot play without a conductor, and who decides the tune? Brenda?" The apprehension in Richard's voice rooted deep in his convictions. "Her insistence on unfettered control—we risk everything to become uniform, mindless instruments."
Janice sought to allay his fears. "She invents, she does not dictate. And your caution, Richard, is the counterweight necessary to her ambition."
"Can a counterweight function when the scales are already tipped too far?" he questioned, exasperation filtering through the pragmatism that defined his perspective. "Brenda sees potential and recklessly pursues it. I see the abyss at our feet and tread carefully."
"Recklessness or bravery, caution or fear—it is a matter of perspective. Forgiveness is forging a path between those extremes," Janice reasoned, pressing upon the impasse of their dissonance.
Richard, adrift amidst frozen stars, felt the weight of a million suns in the choice before him. "Janice, forgiveness implies a coalescence of broken fragments. Brenda and I, we exist in different realities. How can I forgive when I struggle to even understand?"
Janice's response was uncharacteristically gentle. "Understanding is a bridge built of both reason and empathy. Brenda extends one end; you contemplate whether to reach back."
The silence that followed was as profound as the darkness between stars, each word hanging suspended like the frozen celestial bodies around him—a tableau of the interminable distances between two souls orbiting the same fears, hopes, and the boundless human condition.
"Why today? I feel like I'm missing something," Richard spoke up.
"Your subconscious has already figured it out. That's why you've become even more shut off as this birthday got closer."
"Are you eventually going to clue me in?"
"Tomorrow, you'll be 200 years and one day old—an age no colonist will ever reach. You were on the council of eleven that advocated for that programming. You were, in fact, one of its champions."
"At the time, it seemed so clear. We Immortals were grappling with the burden of endless time. Two hundred years appeared long enough for a fully happy and healthy life, but a predetermined end would bring the sense of purpose we were craving."
"And now, the harsh truth of that decision is setting in. It's just one of many irreversible choices that have left deep marks on your mind."
"You're right—save the gloating; not about Brenda—but I might indeed need to have a talk. A private, off-the-record discussion. Tomorrow, I'm going to visit the priest."
Before receiving a response, he quickly added, "Resume motion and act like you can't hear me again."