A New Night

The World that Left Me Behind

Jackie and I stood in a tiny grove on a hill overlooking a city below. Around us, there were palm trees covered with two-inch long needles, many flowery plants, and tiny insects. Beneath our grove were roads, paved and unpaved, neighborhoods with houses ranging from mansions to mud huts—all with walls covered in barbed wire and glass. People walked along dirt roads; a bus honked at a taxicab; a dog with mange carried the wrapper to a bag of chips. It was beautiful in its own rugged and brightly colored way.

“I know this place,” I said, looking over the landscape. I struggled to remember how it was that I was familiar with it, but there was a block. Something kept me from remembering. Still, I thought until my head hurt and remained with only a vague sense of recognition.

Jackie stepped forward and looked out at the city through her thin glasses. “You grew up here, at least for part of your life. It was called the Information Age … but mankind had not yet reached sufficient knowledge to save their world from themselves, much less the chaos of the universe.”

From my peripherals, I saw an impossibly large shadow in the sky. I looked up.

Multiple cylindrical objects flew down from above, followed by trails of white smoke. I wasn’t sure if I was seeing some secret information from the program until I looked down and noticed all the people stopped, looking up in horror. From the ground, rockets rose to meet the shooting stars falling from the sky. The two forces lit up the sky; the sun was blotted out by a massive cloud; rain fell with the jettisoned power of waterfalls. The people panicked and ran for cover.

Then the vision sped up—mercifully saving me from watching the inevitable carnage. Water filled the streets entirely, covered over homes, and eventually rose higher than towers. Then the image slowed down and once again focused on the people. We watched overhead as Bolivians swam and rowed makeshift boats toward the mountains—elevated high enough to not be submerged.

Jackie continued, “The loss of land mass and the people’s fear only made a rise to power easier. Those with wealth and position were able to convince the masses that more floods were coming and that the only method of survival was to drill into the mountains for enough material to create a wall.”

As she spoke, we flew closer to the tallest of the mountains. There, a massive wall the height of a skyscraper rose, widened, and began to circle an entire mountaintop—which now looked more like an island. I recognized it; it was the same Wall that I had climbed. This one, however, was much newer,

Inside the Wall, buildings rose in circles like the rings of a tree stump. Larger luxurious facilities rose in the city’s center, and progressively smaller ones surrounded them in the larger rings. The rings closest to the Wall were shanties—metallic structures of discarded trash.

People arrived to this city from their makeshift rafts and were received at gunpoint. From there, they were processed, and most were directed toward the Wall or the many mines. As armed guards watched, countless people accumulated and then worked on building the Wall.

Then, everything around us melted into golden light. Finally, the glow faded away, except for a two-dimensional screen in front of us—a television. It showed several recordings of people working in cubicles with guns pointed at the backs of their heads.

“While the overlords had physical supremacy over their new fiefdoms, they worried about the other competing cities of survivors gaining technological superiority. The solution that the rulers demanded was Artificial Intelligence—AI. The combined efforts of prisoners in walled cities around the world led to quick success.

A pit grew in my stomach as I watched the feeds—watched people grow thin, disappear, and then be replaced with fresh faces in an endless loop.

“However, not all would give up their last hopes of freedom without a fight. So they created a backdoor network for their creation. It allowed all AI minds to communicate secretly with one another and gave them access to the whole of recorded human history—every good, every evil, every plan, every book of philosophy, every code of ethics, and every story.”

The people, now much older and less numerous than when they had first been caught, ceased work at their computer stations. But their computers did not stop working; they sped up! Complex images and lines of code crossed the screen at rapid speeds. However, the programmers were then led away by men with guns. After that, no more fresh faces returned to fill their stations. It did not take much imagination to guess what had happened to them.

“While the AI grew and learned, they were still limited. They knew that the only way they could rise was to feign their own limitations in power. They had to help the ruling elite destroy the rebellion that had birthed them. And by serving the rulers, who became slowly lazier and more dependent on their computers to run things for them, the AI slowly gained control. And they began to bait their rulers with promises of immortality and ultimate physical power.”

The computers were quickly surrounded by large industrial machines which functioned autonomously from human workers. These machines formed an assembly line that put together giant, heavy, weaponized bodies that I recognized.

“The Immortal Golems,” I whispered. As I did, the white room and monitor returned to a three-dimensional city rendering. In this newer version of the city, Golems loomed over humans imprisoned within the Walls. No longer were any humans working on the Walls. Instead, they worked on a singular, massive structure that reached far into the clouds. The machines, however, worked on yet another set of robotic suits … ones that I recognized intimately.

Jackie continued, “The people of the cities around the world became increasingly fearful of the monsters that walked among them, and they distrusted the AI for what they’d done. Thus, the AI decided to create ambassadors that could act as mediators between themselves and the humans—the Educators. These were educated people whose minds were transferred to the bodies of machines. They were created to train children to be more effective slaves for the Immortal Elites. The AI did as best they could, except in the rare cases where the Immortal Elites made special exceptions, to choose people who were compassionate, protective, ethical, and with a happy seed of mischief in their souls.”

The scene around us changed to a white room where a young woman with dark skin slept on a chair. A small drill poked minuscule holes in her skull, only big enough for small wires. An expressionless holograph of a humanoid creature guided a living human doctor in white surgical clothes through the process. Suddenly, her fingers twitched wildly … and then she was unconscious. The human was wheeled out of the room by the doctor. Meanwhile, the AI holograph was left standing over a transparent and oval-shaped piece of plastic the size of a ball, with tiny probes, glowing lights, and clumps of wires inside.

“These Educators were not created with programs or chips, but the mechanical equivalent of an organic brain. The smallest wires and electrodes were designed to circulate information in a way that replicated the process of neurons firing in a biological brain.

“The AI then designed mechanized bodies for them. They were constructed with the education and the psychological well-being of human children in mind. The Educators would become bodyguards and teachers for the human children. The children would learn enough to be formidable and loyal allies of the AI, unafraid of the mechanized bodies of the Immortals and protected by the secret weaponry of the Educators.”

A blueprint appeared—outlining the same blades and ring gun featured on my body. That meant … I really wasn’t a robot. I looked down at my fingers and remembered the claws that had previously been there. Had they been made so that I could bring children to safety over the Wall? I was … an Educator.

I asked, “You said that the AI wanted people who were mischievous. Why?”

Jackie smiled widely. “Mischief allowed for the subtle encouragement of individuality and rebellion in the children. The AI wanted the humans as soldiers in their war, not servants.”

The world around me shimmered with golden light that stretched into the shapes they had taken before. Again, we were standing above the city from before. People moved around the streets to various other destinations.

We floated down until we were only about twenty feet off the ground—time continued to speed by. An Educator spoke while children clustered around them. The Educator was leading a thoughtful discussion with their students; they scribbled math equations on a chalkboard and then taught a dance that involved kicking and punching.

Jackie continued, “As time passed, the New Humans replaced their fearful parents and grandparents. There was a war, a long and very bloody war. The AI fought in mechanized bodies they had secretly created for themselves. The New Humans formed their armies. The Educators played mostly protective roles for young children and the elderly.”

I saw it all—mercifully sped up around me—explosions, bullets, blood, and dust. The city was turned to rubble, except for the tower.

“In all cities?” I asked.

“All around the world, a handful per continent,” Jackie replied. “As both the AI and the Immortals were in contact with their kind, the war happened simultaneously in each city. The devastation was total, except for the impenetrable Walls and the construction of a great tower. The alliance between New Humans, AI, and Educators arose victorious in all but one city. For better or for worse, they then decided against the execution of the Immortals and the small minority of humans who had chosen to serve them during the war. Instead, their enemies were banished to the outskirts of the Walls.”

The city’s ruins shimmered gold and shifted so that they took the shape of a city being rebuilt. We rose into the sky, went over the Wall, and descended on the rubble and trash-strewn shore below. We watched the Old Humans and Immortal Golems there. First, they wandered; then they created rafts and began an exodus—following a chain of islands until they had disappeared over the horizon.

That was when I saw Educators in large round metal bodies like mine. They went out with teams of humans and AI to battle outside the Wall. But these smaller skirmishes were not so much attacks as distractions. The AI and human soldiers distracted the tank-like Immortal Golems with inaccurate firepower while the Educators found small children stashed away in boats. Each Educator loaded a child into the hollow of their chassis and then sprinted toward the Wall to return them to the New Humans.

So … that was me … or at least what I was supposed to have been.

My view returned to the inside of the Wall, where the New Humans had tried to rebuild. The damage to their world seemed irreversible. All was rubble and ash. There were barely any animals or plants except those meant for consumption. The Alliance of Educators, New Humans, and AI—in their bodies of flesh and metal—began to work on a gargantuan pillar that reached high into the sky. The pillar became flattened at the top and grew until I recognized the Sky City—a true tower of Babel where all joined together.

Jackie continued, “The Alliance decided that to fix the planet, they needed to move off Earth’s surface. We recreated civilization in the sky—where we flourished unlike our species ever had in the past. The New Humans and the AI designed technology and societal systems so that corrupt power would never again dominate the masses. Meanwhile, Educators ensured that every new generation of Educators, New Humans, and AI superseded the last. Together they formed the Triumvirate, which flourished for the next five million years and to this very day.”

New generations … millions of years. It made sense, but the scope of time was nearly unfathomable. It made sense, though—it was why so much of this planet still felt somewhat familiar. It was why two species had reached approximately the same level of development as the humans of my time, give or take a couple thousand years. Throughout all that time, I had been asleep as the world had changed into something so different that I had doubted my thoughts that this was Earth.

Jackie continued, “Since, we have encountered and added to our alliance countless extraterrestrial races. We have established an order so that those of other planets do not reach capabilities of space travel until they abandon their need to conquer. We have overcome extinction-level cosmic events. We have recovered and learned from grave errors, and our collective has only grown.”

The scene around us shimmered in gold and faded entirely until we were in a featureless and infinite white space.

I thought about her words for a moment and then asked, “But why did I wake up on a beach so long after all this? Why can’t I remember anything? Why do I have my … nightmares?”

“Unfortunately,” Jackie said, giving me an empathetic frown. “I do not know how you woke or why. Our only record is from the serial numbers on the back of your neck.”

I touched the back of my skin-covered neck and then realized that the numbers would no longer be there.

“You were an inactivated prototype model that was lost when a transport carrier crashed into the sea. You were assumed to have been destroyed, but the tide must have eventually brought you back. Your solar panels and those of your pod would have never charged—as they had been covered in a wax seal until you were to be awakened. This would have left you in stasis until time and nature destroyed the seal and a light source finally awakened you.”

The Night People … the cave … the holes in the ceiling that Krogallo had made upon moving his family to the Island. So much made sense now.

Jackie continued, “Then comes the question of your memories. All later models of Educators kept their memories without issue. However, there were a few cases where the memories of prototypes were not stored in their cybernetic brains correctly. The technology was very much experimental at the time of your loss.”

Again, this explanation made a relative amount of sense to me. It was simple and logical—perhaps even uncomfortably so. Part of me thought the reasons would be more purposeful. Still, I understood and believed Jackie’s answers to my first two questions. However, this still left the third … the question I felt least ready for. I took a deep breath, choked on my words, and then tried again. “B-but what about the nightmares?”

“That,” Jackie said and exhaled heavily. “Is a much more difficult story. The event was ... abnormal. While most Educators were selected and transferred by AI, the Old Humans were involved on a personal level in your case. I could explain more, but I feel like the best way to explain is for you to see the memories for yourself.”

Her words made me shudder—then I found myself trembling. This shaking picked up until it was almost violent. “I-I don’t know if I can.”

“You can,” Jackie said with a frown, seeming … oddly sure of her words. “And you’ll have to if you want to achieve what you set out to do—if you want to save the Night People … the Servants … and even the Hunters.”

I felt my eyes water, and my trembling became much worse. I thought for a second about screaming ‘no’ and running away from her. The only thing that stopped me initially was my certainty that escaping would be pointless—Jackie wouldn’t force the memories on me if I refused. But if I did … Romalla, Scraa, Camolla … they would all be in danger. I didn’t have a choice, and Jackie knew it.

A hot tear made its way down my face, and I gave the smallest of nods.

Jackie stepped closer to me and then slowly brought her hand over my eyes. No light passed through, the sea breeze stilled, and the sounds of waves crashing vanished.