The Infinite Evolution - Conversion (14 page)

“
Yeah, she was the clergy at Dad’s
funeral.”

“
Really?”

“
Yes!” said Jade aggravated that Reece did not
recognize her.

“
I guess it was, she looked different, who
knew?”

“
I did,” said Jade who was now upset by
Reece’s inattentive observation.

“
I’m sorry, you’re not mad that I
didn’t remember her, are you?” asked Reece who was noticing Jade’s
disapproval.

“
It’s ok, don’t worry.”

“
Are you sure?” asked Reece.

Showing obvious annoyance Jade responded, “Yeah
really, it’s no big deal!”

“
Ok, well I need to finish up some work, I
will be in my office if you need anything,” replied Reece as he
retreated.

“
Whatever.”

Jade entered her room where she
went online to research the culture of a Floater. She was thinking
how much faster it would be to surf the Internet if she had ocular
implants, but quickly moved on when she noticed there were only
eleven sites referencing Floaters instead of the thousands of sites
she expected. Jade selected the first site and realized the
government maintained it. This was strange considering the search
engines always gave rank to the sites that were the experts and in
her mind; the government was the last organization that would list
the truth regarding this topic. Jade paused for a moment and
reflected back on how this would have been something her dad would
have said. After making this surprising observation of herself,
Jade went through and selected the other ten sites, learning that
these sites were also maintained by government affiliates who
thought poorly of Floaters.

Jade soon remembered a site she
had learned about which stood behind organizations that did not
receive the mainstream attention they so rightfully deserve. Once
on their website she searched for the term “Floaters” and soon
found it. “Ah there it is, all one needs to know about Floaters, in
a fair and impartial way,” said Jade as she vigorously scanned the
pages:

Floaters have an
association with a variety of different terms, Wanderer, Nomad,
Traveler, Roamer, or Gypsy. They were people who migrated to Europe
from northern India around the 14th century and some were known as
Floaters. Many Floaters have preserved elements of their
traditional culture, including the interest in a nomadic lifestyle.
Floaters arrived in North America some time during the 1850s and in
2013, all the nations in the world came together and made it
illegal if citizens failed to electronically register themselves
with the country they were born in. A small fraction of nomadic
cultures agreed it was time to create a resistance against what
they felt to be an outlandish idea. They realized in order to fight
an institution as great as the International Government; they
needed to merge their societies into a unified body with one
purpose, to ensure their right to personal privacy. It was not
until the year 2017 when their numbers grew exponentially. This was
the year when all citizens of Earth, who were born after January 1,
received a PIC implant regardless if they wanted one or not.
Religious groups who once spoke ill of one another, ethnic groups
who were once racist, citizens from different economic brackets,
and individuals from different political parties, all had one thing
in common; their personal privacies were now in
jeopardy.

One may ask if there were so many people worried
about this, then how did their governments pass such a law,
especially the democratic governments. The answer; the majority of
the citizens never saw it coming, until it was too late. It had
nothing to do with war, terrorists, financial crisis, or the world
markets crashing. Consumerism and the want for more was the
catalyst of it all. At the time the PIC technology sounded great
and in many ways it still does. Who wouldn’t want unlimited access
to all types of information literally at their fingertips? As the
movement grew a belief started to spread, if one is connected to
everything it disconnects that one from the most important thing of
all, themselves.

Jade stopped reading for a minute
and thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me, this is like some hippie
movement or worse, some type of conspiracy theory my Dad would’ve
concocted. Now I can see why there are so few hits about this
online.”
Jade read on:

Consumerism is a
powerful driving force. It helped bring down communism, allowed
huge market growth to areas of the world that without it would be
nothing but deserts, and with help from the military, gave us the
technologies we have today. As technology grew and as the world
became more connected, we started to share more and more of our
personal information with each other. As we became amazed, and in a
way hypnotized by this technology, we indirectly sold our personal
privacy for a piece of convenience and/or entertainment. We became
dependent on the technical addiction. Then the PIC was introduced
and countries debated if they should or should not mandate PIC
implantation. Once the United States and other superpowers agreed
on making it a mandate, they granted the International Government
the power to make it materialize. During this great debate, the
United States Senate became equally divided on this matter after
their one hundred votes were tallied. This led the former Vice
President of the United States to make the deciding vote for the
Senate on a bill that would take us into a new age. We ask, was it
sheer coincidence the former Vice President became a board member
of Central Circuit after his term expired? Who was to blame? Some
say the businesses that controlled the market and increasingly the
government, were the driving force with the ‘bottom line’ being
their compulsion.

Don’t forget diversity in our capitalistic society
is paramount. However, when only a few companies monopolize
everything, where will this diversity come from and will we become
slaves to the products and services we so closely crave?

Lastly, we cannot
allow the people who want to preserve their privacy to become
social outlaws due to popular standards. Doing so is only a
convenient way of not accepting a diverse societal
overlay.

Remember readers;
people can make choices when technology is a luxury, but when it
becomes a necessity, what choice is there to be made? If you are
interested in joining our movement, please send us a notice via a
public terminal, to 7778993.

As Jade finished up the last sentence she made a
mental note of the number and deleted the Internet history from her
browser, then heard Reece yell, “Jade, are you hungry?”

“
Um, yeah, I’ll be right there,” said Jade as
she started to contemplate her entire belief structure.

An
Anomaly

Two suns rose over the horizon as
they sent their rays through a thirteen thousand square foot bluish
green stained glass ceiling, which was shaped by individual
diamonds. Underneath this massive triangular ceiling, was a
circular room that housed a thirty-five foot long table shaped as a
figure eight made of solid glass one foot thick. In each of the
circular openings, within the table itself, stood two platinum
poles that rose fifty-three feet in height. The exterior of this
table was surrounded by thirteen black half-moon shaped chairs with
silver trim. Large metallic beams, five feet wide, wrapped the
center of the room and laid flush with the glass panels that formed
the great enclosure. The entire room sat at the peak of this
enormous structure, which looked similar to a pyramid, and reached
over five hundred stories in height. This great structure carried
the title,
The
Ark
.

“
This council will now convene
per the laws of Tureis,” called out the Admin whose deep voice
echoed off the glass ceilings within this great room. Three
rectangular nine-foot doors, placed evenly apart, allowed the
twelve humanoids to enter the chamber. These humanoids, six female
and six male, varied in height and skin color from one another.
They were similar in appearance to humans on Earth. The only
exception was they were taller. They wore simple skin-tight green
jumpsuits with a one six inch wide grayish black stripe that ran up
the center of the front and back. On the top of their right hands
lay a symbol of the infinity sign made with a variety of purplish
gems embedded permanently into their skin. The twelve members took
a stance directly behind their seats and the Admin identified each
of them by announcing their names, the female types were called
first, “Corinth, Mileva, Kyria, Oshea, Shiphra, and Willow. The
Admin now proceeded to announce the male types, “Abner, Elymas,
Izri, Melchior, Quartus, and Uzziah.” Once finished, all twelve
resituated themselves so their chairs were now behind
them.

A glass sphere descended from the
peak of the chamber with a humanoid inside. As the sphere grew
closer to the floor, it started to collapse from within to the
point where it was just a circular platform. The subject who stood
in the center of the platform went by the name Zaccai. This
humanoid wore a dark blue hooded robe that completely covered them
from head to toe. The pattern in the robe was of an even darker
color blue and consisted of a variety of interlacing circles of all
different sizes. As soon as Zaccai sat at the center of the table,
the rest of the members also took their seats.

“
Let us get to the issue at hand so I can make
this gathering as short as possible. What is the status of
EC6L163O7074,” asked Zaccai with a forceful voice.

A stubby ill-tempered older male
with light skin and a sharp nose immediately voiced his opinion, “I
found this to be an anomaly. I have obtained new intelligence that
EC6L163O7074
is no longer questioning his
merger, and will
now accept it once we
eradicate this current life experience from his consciousness. I
say we implement the solution by
eradicating the memories, accept the merger, and upload him
with a new consciousness
,” demanded
Melchior.

“
I am disappointed in you. I
assumed you would know better being one of the eldest. This is why
your wish to run this council never materialized. It is too
dangerous. I move to terminate EC6L163O7074 immediately,” barked
Oshea, a slim woman with a lean face.

Abner, a clean cut, dark skinned
council member, with long silver and blonde hair, looked over
towards Oshea and said aggressively, “That is ridiculous! Do not be
so overbearing and quick to judge. Just because you feel no one
should receive salvation if marked with a defect, does not give you
the right to terminate his or her existence. I move to postpone
this decision until the end of this gathering and talk about the
future of our inventory.”

“
I concur, and find your ideas,
Abner, to be highly enlightening,” said Willow with her perfectly
oval mouth and tantalizing amber eyes. Little did Abner know,
Willow was trying to appease him in order to gain his loyalty, in
regards to what needed to transpire when it came to
EC6L163O7074.

A tall idealistic council member
named Izri dropped his fist to the table and with a smug look
bellowed out, “I call for a vote on postponement. I believe with my
creative troubleshooting abilities I could assist Prime 2 in
figuring out this anomaly.”

The Admin stepped in and stated, “Three members have
agreed on postponing the decision regarding termination of
EC6L163O7074 until the end of this gathering, please link in your
vote on this matter now.”

“
I call for a reconsideration,” ordered
Melchior.

“
Under our governing law your
reconsideration cannot be allowed as long as we have three members
in agreement for temporary postponement. I will not allow any
further discussion until we vote on this matter. Link your votes on
postponement,” explained the Admin. Within moments, the Admin
called out, “Seven to Six is the count, and the discussion to
terminate EC6L163O7074 will be postponed until the end of this
gathering.”

Kyria, a boisterous counsel
member who was very pleasing to look at, stood up and called out,
“Superb, are there any objection if Prime 2 gave us the most
current report on our harvesting rates?” There was a slight pause,
then Kyria followed up with, “Excellent, Admin you have my
confirmation to place Prime 2 online.”

“
Understood, I will need one other to
confirm,” advised the Admin.

“
I will confirm,” grumbled
Melchior.

The two large platinum poles
received a surge of electrical current and created multiple
transparent screens between both poles. “Prime 2 is online,” stated
the Admin.

A 3-D virtual interpretation of a
bald man with dark skin appeared on both sides of the largest
transparent screen, as smaller screens filled up with images of
different celestial bodies.

“
What can I assist the council with?” inquired
Prime 2 with its omnipotent voice.

“
Please report on our harvesting rates for all
seven active planets,” asked Kyria politely.

Seven spinning planets emerged
around Prime 2’s holographic face with digital readouts. The data
exhibited always reverted to zero when Tureis completes one full
orbit around its alpha sun, which took four hundred and forty three
days. The following information showed up on the
display: