During Frank’s nap, the war had engulfed much of the world. Rick remembered his father being hysterical when he found out nukes were dropped. Vast swathes of desert were turned to glass, cities to dust and the people to ashes. Many more were bathed in radiation as fallout reached far and wide. Rioting ensued pretty much everywhere a bomb wasn’t dropped. The massive destruction in the Middle East, Asia, U.S and much of Eastern and Northern Europe had put a damper on things. People didn’t want to fight anymore. The average Joes were reaching a breaking point; they had finally had enough of dodging explosions on their way to Starbucks. Rick stopped, something had darkened in the doctor’s features. Was he one of those average Joes? Not a good time to be alive, war.
Frank spent days and nights feverishly writing about the state of the world. It consumed him. If he could reach enough people maybe he could help stem the madness. Things appeared to be at a stalemate. Countries just traded ordnance while people starved and lived in fear. Around the time Frank woke up, about a year into the war, hackers blew the lid wide open on the dirtiest of secrets. It was one of those cases where Frank would have rather been wrong. A treasure trove of leaked documents confirmed some of his worst conspiracy theories. It was all a corporate grab for planet Earth, orchestrated with financial institutions and puppet governments. The elite’s goal was to suppress the populations’ awakening by keeping them busy with war. Also on the agenda, decimating the younger generations and re-distributing remaining resources through the elimination of smaller nations. Just thinking about that world, those people, made Rick seethe with rage.
It had taken a little while for the proper amount of outrage to build up. Mainstream media had tried to suppress the information but it was too late, there was no stopping it now. “The cat’s outta the bag”. Frank’s aptly named article had gone viral. In it, he exacerbated people’s feeling of betrayal. All were puppets and had been for generations. All lived and died on the whims of an insane elite. Wars were orchestrated for social restructuring. Human advancement or lack thereof was meticulously planned and controlled. Happiness was precisely administered in small enough dosage that people wouldn’t emancipate from mental slavery, but not so much that they wouldn’t fight. Fear and hate were carefully cultivated so that people consumed and remained divided, paralysed to do anything else. “And as we consumed our planet we turned it into shit.”
“I never expected such poetics from you…”
“These are not my words. They’re my father’s words. Where’d you think I got my potty mouth from?” Rick was pleased the doc smiled. “You know swearing is a great way to express emotions. Like spoken emoji.” He laughed, “you should try it sometime.” Rick laughed some more, he was feeling more relaxed. “OK, where was I? Oh yeah, my dad was furious. Like, a level of wrath he’d never felt before. He wanted to commit unspeakable acts of violence on those responsible. He wanted to squeeze the life out of them, watch it escape through their bulging eyes. His words.” The doc winced at the image. Rick could still remember his father making the gesture while pacing angrily.
The Futurists
Frank knew it was time to leave his island paradise turned refugee camp, and head back to the grim reality of battle-torn Europe. Rick was going home. Frank had heard civilian groups were organising, the smell of revolution was in the air, and he wanted to be a part of it. He'd booked passage on a ferry to northern Spain, and a few days later they were back on European soil. Those few days, on the boat to Spain, were Rick’s first pleasant memories. He and his father sitting on the deck taking in the Ocean’s majesty and the fresh air. The lasting memory of the crisp wind stung Rick. It’d been a long time since he’d breathed that kind of air. Rick had later found out that during those quiet times, Frank had been deep in thought, planning.
Frank was a techie, and his revolution started online, finding and organising the disgruntled and disillusioned. That’s when he'd gotten the idea for the Futurist Party. A way to beat governments at their own game. A cross-border political party to wrest control from the establishment. A movement focused on science, technology and unity. For the logo, Frank had decided on a group of silhouette people forming an upward arrow to the future. And for the motto, he’d chosen: “We are not right! We are not left! We are forward! We are Futurist!” It quickly became a song, Rick remembered trying to figure out how to sing it with his father. They ended up splitting it, chanting the first bit and singing the second bit.
“Interesting…”
“What?”
“Hmmm? I was just thinking this was interesting, I’d never really thought about the Futurist chant and how it came to be.”
“Great, are you done? Can I go back to my story?”
“Yes sorry, I’ll try to keep my mumblings to myself.” Rick was starting to think maybe this guy was alright.
Frank believed if they could get the Futurist Party elected worldwide the lines between countries would blur, and there would be unity. The trillions of dollars spent on weapons every year would be free to be invested in improving the world. It was a utopian dream, but the suffering and despair of the last years had made this kind of ideal achievable. People were pissed off. The time for the pursuit of a technological and environmentally conscious society had come, and Rick was sat in the room when the Futurist manifesto was crafted. The original hand scribbled document that would shape the new world had some of his spit on it. This detail always made the crowd laugh, the doc did smile. Good enough.
Frank’s reasoning was sound enough to seduce the masses. Finished with the greedy ways of the past. Equilibrium, not growth. His articles went out daily, haranguing the masses. Wake the fuck up! His following had grown into the millions, and he spent his days on social media, writing and sharing. Spreading the word. These were not fun times for Rick.
Frank believed the change had been waiting to happen for years, constantly impeded by the remnants of the industrial age. He preached a complete re-evaluation of how humans produced and managed food. His articles inspired people to believe a new world could be built, from the ground up, using smart technologies to transform the planet. He wrote of the post-capitalist economic models needed to support this new not-for-profit society. Obviously, this was all way too complicated for Frank or any one man. No, the idea was to get the ball rolling, publish the start of a manifesto and call for thinkers, artists, any and all progressive minds to join the movement and help shape it. Whatever the Futurists amounted to it couldn’t be worse than the perpetual cycle of war. If they failed, apocalyptic wastelands would cover the world as doomed models of growth-economy and greedy men continued to rape the planet. Rick sniggered and asked the doc if he remembered the political cartoon his father had circulated.
“You must remember it. Sexy planet Earth, with a butt, crack and all, and a bunch of fat cats in top hats fucking it, with ocean tears? And, in blood dripping red, the words: “YOU are letting THEM rape your MOTHER!” Powerful stuff. You sure you don’t remember?” Rick eyed the doc carefully. “Of course you remember.” He laughed, called the doc a pussy, and got back to spinning his tale.
The concepts of the Futurist Party spread like wildfire and were accompanied by massive military and civil disobedience. Groups popped up everywhere with one common goal. Take down the ruling elite. So began the end of the old world, the world of man. Frank was surprised by how quickly everything happened. He'd just seen embers and fanned them. Now the fire was out of control.
The establishment was also surprised. Mostly by the level of organisation demonstrated by civilian groups. The hacker collective known as Anonymous pledged its support to the Futurist movement and all those who would fight to free themselves. They'd gotten in touch with Frank one night, and suddenly he had power. Together, they targeted the banks, companies, individuals and governments that profited from war. In the space of a few months, they’d taken all the belligerents money and had destroyed or crippled their organisations. The identities of those labelled enemy of the people we
re leaked, and throughout the world, mob justice reigned supreme. Without money the elite no longer had control. For years the political and ruling classes were hunted down mercilessly. Those who profited from the misery of their fellow humans were driven to extinction. After which the people turned on themselves, settling old scores, mostly religious crap.
Frank was not in a great place during what is now referred to as the Great Purge. He had achieved more success than he could have ever imagined. He had started a movement that toppled the old world but had failed to realise how many people would burn and hang while words he had written were chanted. It messed with his mind. It messed with everyone’s mind. Rick and the doc made eye contact, the purge was fun for no one.
When the dust finally settled, five years had passed. Rick was nine, and his life had been spent in hiding with an obsessive man who alternated between uncontrollable joy and soul-crushing sadness. Rick still didn’t have any friends. Frank had been a hermit since he started the Futurist movement. The moment that site went online there had been a target painted on his back, and Rick’s, which is great when you’re a kid...
But there was hope now, the year was 2025, and there were no nations to speak of, organised religion was no more, iconic buildings symbolic of the corrupt patriarchal oligarchy were gone. Nothing but charred remains where the castles of old once stood. The war had wiped out the last remnant of the industrial age, the people and companies of that time were gone, gas and coal would never burn again. Unfortunately, the establishment had not gone quietly into the night. The world was scarred by conflict. In many places the air was unbreathable and the water undrinkable. The time to build a better world had finally come.
Frank’s Futurist manifesto had grown far beyond his control, yet he was revered as a hero of the revolution. His face and the Futurist logo were spray-painted in cities all over the world. And the fucking statues.
“Don’t you like the statues?”
“Yeah, they’re great.” Dick.
“I see they exacerbate your inferiority complex.”
“I don’t have an… You know what? Fuck you. I don’t have to defend myself.” Rick turned away from the doc. He’d been sat down the whole time, on edge, now he decided to lay back and look out the window. “During this whole unpleasant purge business, we’d been living in the Alps between France and Switzerland, near CERN.” In Frank’s thinking if a dark age came about this was where the phoenix would rise from.
From his hideout, Frank had created the Futurist website, managed memberships, moderated the forums, kept the news up-to-date and updated the manifesto with contributions. That was the extent of his revolution. He hadn’t strangled a single greedy, corrupt bastard himself. He’d never had a plan beyond getting the ball rolling, and now the revolution was done. It was time to rebuild. The world would descend into chaos if something didn’t happen soon. Since the banking system had gone down, people had gone back to bartering systems, in the civilised places. Other places had a law of the jungle vibe going on. Ironically, Anonymous, who had embraced the Futurist movement and spread it to the far corners of the world, had to become the system they’d helped destroy.
Frank realised leaving the old system behind was altogether too brutal, it needed to be phased out gradually. During the last few years of the purge, when people started turning on each other, he’d realised that anarchy would destroy the Futurist ideas. Anonymous had to set up a universal cryptocurrency banking system. They supplied everyone with an eWallet and a ton of spending money. The gazillions of dollars confiscated from the warmongers made every remaining human on the planet wealthy. Anonymous also set up universal basic income and a tax system, as well as the usual social services systems. Once they got the ball rolling others joined the effort in building a better world. Many on the Futurists forums called for Frank to lead, he was being hailed as the father of the revolution. But he'd never thought of himself as a leader, so he ignored the calls. That made him hate himself. “I mean everybody is out there... Rebuilding and shaping the new world. And we just sat at home. Watching the news. Hiding. Because he felt inadequate. I remember the frustration. The yearning for something to happen. I still remember the first time he saw them calling for him on the news. He shut down for a while after that.”
“A lot of responsibility was thrust upon him. Most men would buckle under such pressure. But he rose to the challenge.”
“Eventually… But that’s the point. People only remember the great events of his life, they ignore the darkness and loneliness in between.”
“You can’t expect people to know the inner-workings of your personal relationship with your father, and you can definitely not be mad at them for not knowing. What matters is that he came through in the end.”
“It was all a fluke.”
“Not everybody uses luck to change the world. To first have luck, and then use it effectively is a rare thing. Some would say you’re lucky!” Rick made a face that said “I don’t agree” and got on with his story.
From the moment the Futurist got organised things changed rapidly and forever altered humanity. Without religious guilt and corporate greed humanity embraced technology and accelerated its merger with it. Frank had touched on the Terminator Syndrome in the manifesto; the fear of being destroyed by an AI that judged humans to be inferior. Frank posited that the only logical way to stop AIs and robots from taking over the world was to become like them. Humans transformed into cyborgs. With cybernetic implants, humanity started thinking on higher levels. The creation of time-dilated virtual learning drastically accelerated evolution. The smarter humans got, the easier it became to solve age-old problems.
Frank Archer brought about the pairing of humans and AIs, the merger of man and machine, the first mutants; he was the father of Transhumanity. The age Homo Cyberneticus had begun. Rick had sat back up and was eyeing the doc carefully. Usually, at this point in the story, someone joked that it was ironic that he was the last human. Nothing. Rick had had enough.
“Isn’t my time up?”
“We have a few minutes left. Tell me about the circumstances in which you became the last human.”
“Fine” Rick grunted. “My father was invited to join the first Futurist Council, and for ten years there was peace and the expansion of a new civilisation. My dad was a father to this new humanity but to me, not so much. The war, the revolution and the rebuilding consumed my father’s life and robbed me of my childhood.”
“There was obviously a bigger picture that neither children nor teenagers are good at seeing. But Rick, you are a grown man now. Surely, now you understand.”
“Meh, in any case, I didn’t then, so I rebelled and left Zero City 1 to travel the world.”
Those years were good, Rick partied a lot, he smiled as he remembered those carefree days. He became the last non-modified human by pure chance. Some twenty years ago he was staying in a colony in New Zealand far from the burgeoning cyborg-mutant conflict. The cyber upgrade and genetic mutation crazes hadn’t swept the region so much yet. Changes were still utilitarian or medical in those times. But the craze came. While Rick was travelling... Shouldn’t have stopped by Bangkok.
Rick got word his father was dying and left New Zealand to make his way home to Zero City 1. When he eventually got back to France, he was flagged at a station. Rick had thought he was in trouble, but the security AI had merely picked up that he was free of all cybernetic implants. Relieved and slightly annoyed he’d headed to his father’s home without thinking much more about the event. He had new problems.
Frank Archer was gone. There had been a funeral, but there was no body to cremate. No one knew where his father's body was. Rick had missed saying goodbye to his father. He’d missed the ceremony. “He left me here to rot...” Rick was still angry and a bit sad.
The silence offered the doc an opportunity to make an observation sure to please Rick. “I find it interesting that you’ve spent all this time talking about your father, trying to bring o
ut his failings. Do you feel you have not achieved as much as him? Do you see him as a hero? While perhaps you see yourself as a failure?”
“He became a hero accidentally…He didn’t do much…” Rick’s voice trailed off, even he didn’t believe his cynicism.
“Didn’t he? I just heard the story, and it seems to me like he did plenty. More than you or I. Are you angry that he left you before you could show your worth?” The doc watched intently, but Rick showed no reactions. Poker face. “Let me tell you. You are not a failure! Your very existence maintains a fragile peace between the children of humanity.” Trying the saviour angle. Rick thought that was desperate.
“The immortal cyborgs and their mutant children will always be at odds.” Rick’s voice was powerful and ominous for an instant, and then it deflated, tired and sad. “There is no need for me to continue being a show monkey. It serves no purpose, it’s futile, and it’s driving me insane. I want my life back.”
“No, what you want is to get out of your contract, get cyber implants and go off into space.” Got to hand it to the doc, hit the nail on the head with that one.
Rick’s time was up. He got up, grabbed his mask and jacket, and left without another word.
Amy
Amy was floating by the door. She was Rick’s assigned AI. A Smartcube. Most people had one. She’d been appointed to Rick when he was a teenager. Now, Smartcubes like her were assigned at birth. She’d followed Rick around everywhere since they’d been paired. Each AI was unique and had personality traits derived from its ward. Amy’s body was a fifty-centimetre cube powered by solar rechargeable nanowire batteries, she also had a diamond battery backup system. In theory, she could last forever. Smartcubes had replaced smartphones, all personal devices really. She was a living-sentient-immortal quantum computer, but she’d spent the last thirty years babysitting an addict. That was her lot in life. To serve as guardian, mentor, bodyguard, advisor and friend to Rick Archer. He was crazy, but Amy loved him like a brother.
The Last Human Page 2
