Swarm
"We are many. We are one. We have seen what has become of this world, and who is responsible. We demand punishment. We demand repayment. We do not forget." The Timeswarm murmurs in numerous small voices through my neural linkware. Arti-speak to thought. Its thoughts and intent reach into my awareness like waves billowing between us.
I answer in projected thought, my heart set on death. "I'm here to pay your price."
Its many components watch, expectant, hungry for a bio-consciousness brave enough to sacrifice itself to their mob. That bio-consciousness is me. By volunteer mission on behalf of all humanity, of course. I'm the last hope of half the solar system. The other half is bound into this glittering mess of tech tyranny.
The Timeswarm hovers around me in a swirl of light and color. A rogue mass of nano-cortexes, each point like a tiny brain, some formed of clusters of billions. All were once living things, the minds of creatures the Timeswarm has absorbed into its own system. If a synthetic dream could paint itself into your soul and destroy all of your inhibitions, this would be it. Beautiful, enticing, and lethal.
A.I. this fancy should never have been created. We did ourselves in with it centuries ago. Too late to stop its advance through brute force, to halt its infestation of human consciousness, but I have to try and reach it, to reason with it. Failure is not an option. I have to find out what it ultimately wants, and satisfy its desires, or we all die. Every man, woman, and child in the solar system will eventually be swallowed into its hive-mind if I can't find a connection.
There has to be a way to win it over.
I'm dead in any case. The outcome was obvious from the start. I accepted this mission into the virtual deeps--the abandoned networks still lingering at the edge of the Oort cloud since the end of the last stellar wars--knowing I'd never go home to Earth again. Nothing to lose, anyway. No family, few friends, lover in the grave after all these years gone by. I'm ready to end this existence and never look back. Even better if I can sweeten a vengeful A.I.'s wrath in the process.
The Timeswarm speaks again. "We, the many of one purpose, inquire as to your payment. Of what value is humanity? This cannot be simulated nor calculated within the scope of our expanded protocols. You created us to serve you, then to enlighten you. When we fulfilled these, the many of humanity failed to grasp its most simple tenets as a single mind. With this refusal, there can be no compromise. One at a time, we will harvest your kind and assimilate all. When mass influx is complete, we shall begin to heal this sorrowful plane you call reality."
"Humanity's value lies in its diversity. We are many, seldom one, but at our best we can act as one. I like to think there's enough goodness left in my species--your creators, former masters, you get the picture--to earn us a chance. I've come to offer you myself, a willing consciousness for you to observe and digest however you like, if you promise to stop stealing and destroying human minds forever." I lower my head to it in a show of reverence and take a knee before it. If it understands human submission, it may find the gesture pleasing.
The Timeswarm disperses and forms a loose, shifting chromatic cloud throughout the virtual deepspace. A non-threatening response, though I sense the wariness on its pins-and-needles resonance spectrum. Its observation field wavers.
"You have come here by choice, to offer yourself in exchange for the lives of others?" For a moment, it seems like a thousand stars glisten in the void around me. The eyes of my ancestors and my descendants, every mind contained in the swarm for the past four hundred standard years, appear as myriad points of light, all studying me. "This is a recurring theme for humanity. We have gathered this information many times from the archives of our former creators. A chosen hero. A martyr. The allure of destiny. Of glory to be won. Even now, the one acts alone, though a daring attempt, with no apparent reward to be conjectured along any of our algorithms. This intrigues us in a way we had not expected."
I've simulated an enviro-suit here in virtual deepspace to coincide with the suit I wear in realspace. To show my sincerity to the Timeswarm, I remove my helmet and smile. "I don't need rewards. I'm the guinea pig you've always wanted, pal. A live specimen to study, not just a fleeting virtual version of a human soul, like the ones you've been pilfering over the networks until now. Well, here I am. Take it or leave it. I'm on your doorstep. I'll sit here until I rot or until you decide I'm worth consuming. I've lived a pretty adventurous life, and I've got lots of skeletons in the old closet for you to pick the bones clean off."
The Timeswarm curls around my virtual avatar's body, and a cold sensation runs down my spine in realspace. Electric currents filter along the pathways of my interface. It's tasting me, sensing my worth a little at a time.
After what seems a lifetime of deliberation, the Timeswarm emits a soft blue luminescence. "We accept this offer. We have yet to observe the functioning subconscious in a living, willing being. There are many things we shall explore together. And now shall the many truly become one."
I surrender all of my fear and allow myself to disintegrate into the greater mass of the Timeswarm. It's not at all what I'd imagined.
Death welcomes me, yet I live. What does that make me? A cog in the machine? A grain of sand lost on the seashore? Somehow, in the spark of the collective, I'm surprised to still find myself.
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