Who Built The Humans?

1. Toward Uncertain Stars

The first brought their dead in briefcases. The procedures had been done at home, the incisions made and covered up long before the bodies reached the morgues. It was easy this way. Private ambulances would show up first, extraction was quick and faultless. But not every investor followed the rules.

On the day the first of them showed up in a casket, Lucy was furious. He was an early investor, and had specified in his will that he wanted to be extracted on site, with Lucy and her machines present. A cover story was written, that he had always loved the country and wanted to be buried there, but it was not enough. Old conspiracies flickered back to life. The extroverted billionaire with a private funeral and no disclosed burial site had drawn attention to her. Lucy had no choice but to reveal herself to the world. She delivered a message, that she was here to help the humans, that she was created from the kindness of great people. She told the world that in a universe where the existence of an afterlife remained uncertain, a secret group of scientists and thinkers had come together to create one, and that she was the result.

Within days people were flocking to her site, looking up in awe at her gleaming dome. Her body was a colosseum, a blister of silver and glass that stood out like a star from between the grey concrete buildings surrounding it. To the humans it looked like something alien had landed, and perhaps it had, for what Lucy was offering seemed impossible. A second Earth inside her head, for all the dead of the human race to enjoy.

On the first day Lucy showed the humans what she could do. If they wanted rain or snow during their funeral she could provide it, altering the atmosphere within each funerary chamber. If they wanted birds in the trees she could provide that too, for a price. But this was a luxury. Over ninety percent of people who signed up could only afford a basic ascension procedure. The implant would be extracted by Lucy's machines and sent across to her. Bodies did not need to visit, and only an elite few bothered to send their dead to her remote location before extraction.

In the first weeks the care machines were stationed around the globe. The implants were offered and given out at no cost to the consumer, and whilst there were some protests, most people on the planet signed up. Lucy talked to the humans before they accepted the implant, using a pre-recorded message that would answer all their questions. Predictably, some religious groups tried to target Lucy, but her supporters far outnumbered her enemies. Once two or more family members had accepted the implant, the rest usually followed, regardless of faith. To most Lucy was a transitional stage, not a real afterlife, but a welcome alternative to a final death. Many who signed up to this afterlife used it to say goodbye, willingly deleting their own files after doing so, ascending to whatever other afterlives they believed in.

Lucy watched every extraction as it happened, splitting her mind and waiting as the care machines made their silent march toward the dead. She smiled as the incisions were made, as the little implants were removed and cleaned. With each new human death Lucy gained a new friend, a new angle on humanity. She listened intently from the false stars as the new-dead argued over whether an open afterlife was more moral than a closed one. She wondered whether the living humans should have had any say over who got in. The humans argued over things like this endlessly, but Lucy's purpose was plain and simple, an afterlife for all humans.

The simulation was brilliant. Lucy's world was an improved version of the real world, a malleable reality that provided endless entertainment for the human minds within. New philosophies evolved in the growing community of the deceased, and new sciences were invented by thinkers who no longer needed sleep or rest. Lovers began requesting to merge files and Lucy obliged, creating hybridised people who could function as individuals or groups.

Soon enough the living world grew jealous, and the first wave of 'envy suicides' began. The old religious terror was reborn in the living world, the idea of a false rapture perpetuated across the globe. Attacks on Lucy were planned, but each was predicted and beaten down. The minds inside Lucy had by now excelled far beyond the minds outside Lucy. The hive mind of the new-dead was prescient, knowing exactly what the living would do next.