Official Intelligent Beings: How Our Devices Became Us, And The World Consumed Itself

by Greenfield, Josh

  He took a deep breath and turned to Shera, who was standing eagerly by his bed.

  “I’m proud of you. Very proud. That took a huge set of balls. But what I’m really feeling…”

  Shera walked over to him, undid his belt, took off his pants, and tossed him onto the bed.

  Chapter 14.

  Jagz awoke in an unfamiliar place, but this time he was not floating, he was swimming in what appeared to be a very gentle and breathable substance—a mixture of water and air. He was moving in what seemed to be a sea of other humans, similar to him, but unique in their own way. The further he swam, the stronger the desire was to swim even further. As his arms and legs grew tired, his want to get to wherever it was that he was going got even stronger still.

  He finally arrived where everyone around him seemed to be headed and, he saw a giant spherical soft, pinkish cream-colored structure. Just as he was close enough to touch it, everyone around him suddenly vanished and a bright and beautiful Official Intelligent Being appeared before him.

  “I am Reha, the Official Intelligent Being of Life. I bring life into your world, your life, and the life of everyone you have ever encountered.”

  “What is this place? What am I doing here?”

  “This place used to bring life to the world before I came along. Long before your time, the only way to create life was by a man fertilizing a woman’s egg with his sperm. Just as you are swimming like a sperm in a sea of millions of others, pulled ever so powerfully towards this egg here, so was the process for everyone before sexual intercourse was no longer necessary.”

  “Why did it become unnecessary?” asked Jagz, at a loss.

  “Since the beginning of time, the only way for a man and woman to create a child, a new life form, was by the now useless act of sexual intercourse. A man would insert his penis into a woman's vagina until his sperm shot into her and fertilized her egg, which then grew into a baby.”

  “This act of sexual intercourse isn’t good anymore?”

  “It started out as a natural way to create a baby. If life wanted to form, to prosper and populate, it needed a way of spreading its seed. Evolution determined that harnessing pleasurable feelings encouraged one to spread his seed. If it felt good, it created an innate desire. But this pleasure and desire also led to the downfall of sexual intercourse.”

  “What is so wrong with the act of sex? It sounds amazing to me.”

  “It’s not the act that is the problem. It’s the desire to constantly perform that act without repercussion. Humans enjoyed sexual intercourse so much that they started to search for ways of having sex without pregnancy. The more they searched for ways of doing this, the more unnatural the act became. The more a woman had to take pills and men had to wear protection to keep their seed from spreading, the more manipulated the female body became, until one day she could no longer reproduce when she finally wanted to. Humans tried to play with Mother Nature and, like so many times before, they failed.”

  “So what you are saying is that sex will not lead to a baby? Even now?”

  “Well, theoretically, yes, it is possible to have a child the old way. But no one has sexual intercourse anymore. It has been done away with thanks to the sexual simulators I created. They are safe, they feel great, and no one has had a baby in many decades.”

  “But if no one has tried. How could we know what is possible?”

  “While it may be possible to have a child the old fashioned way, it’s still highly unlikely. There is no one around who even understands the notion of real intercourse anyhow. Not enough to go through with it, at least. We have managed to curb that urge at birth and with constant conditioning. Besides UrDg and sexual simulators feel so good, what more could one need?”

  “So how are humans created now?”

  “I devised a way for humans to grow from genetic birthing labs under the proper conditions, so that they fit into this world as needed. There are always some things that will be left to chance, of course, but it is far more manageable. Women don’t have to worry about getting pregnant or having to go through the troubles of housing a child in their body for nine months. We can control everything and make perfectly healthy babies happy who already have a tolerance for UrDg from the day that they are born, as well as a positive response for synthetic food.”

  “Odd. I never really thought about how humans came to be. It always just went unquestioned.”

  “Yes. It is all very controlled. Things are better this way. The last thing you would want is a baby through the old methods. Humans may have had a tolerance and acceptance for natural birth many years ago, but now it would only cause chaos.”

  This time when Jagz woke up, he was not alone. He didn’t feel an urge to peer into his screen and search for any new comments, even if he did just release the Quack of all Quacks. No, he had something else far more special to look at.

  He reached his hand to Shera and carefully slipped his arm around her stomach. He nuzzled her softly and gently, careful not to wake her, all while thinking about how much he liked having someone in his bed, her soft and warm skin, her perfume unlike anything he had ever smelled before. As he imaged a life waking up next to this beautiful person every morning, his eyes, growing heavy, ready for more dreaming, were just about to close when Shera blurted out, “Holy mother of nature! You won’t believe it!!! Everyone is going crazy over your Quack. It’s the highest trending Quack ever. You’ve got over 20 million followers!”

  “What? I thought you were sleeping? What are you saying? Are you serious? 20 million? There is no way. It can’t be.”

  “Check your device. It’s all there. So many responses. You wouldn’t believe what they are saying! I have been up all morning. I wanted to wake you, but you seemed to really be enjoying your dream.”

  Jagz grabbed his device and began reading the responses from his followers.

  Aliens? Made contact with us? I knew it! That is crazy awesome. What do I have to do to speak with them? That footage was unreal!

  #whentruthspeaks

  Wrote @mixmark547.

  I always had a feeling there was life on another planet. Out of all the people to contact it’s no surprise they came to u, someone so real, who can unite us all. Hell yeah! I don’t think they want to harm us, how could they want to harm us?#comeinpeace

  Replied @suzytydye3.

  We need to protect our planet! The Beings will show us the way, they will give us what we need to keep our freedom

  Said @eugenejeans09300

  Dudeeee, the Aliens could have contacted anyone in the world and they chose you. Well you know what, I choose you too. i’ll do whatever you say, just show me the way. awww shizzle

  Replied @yespleaseplease765

  “Incredible, isn’t it?” said Shera. “It’s like you are the chosen one! People are really starting to listen to you. They believe what you are saying. They are searching for something new and they found it in you. We aren’t just talking a few thousand, or even a million, we are talking 20 million and growing! And this is just the start. Just imagine where this could go.”

  “I just can’t believe it. I share news about Aliens coming to possibly wipe out the human race and instead of freaking out, instead calling me a nutcase, people actually believe in me, their support for me grows?”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted? This is great. Don’t you see that?”

  “I’m not saying it’s not something else, because it really is, but I honestly don’t know what to make of all of this. Just a short while ago, I was just a guy with a small following speaking to a few thousand people and now, well, this is something else. I just think I need a minute to clear my head. Do you mind if I step out for a quick stroll?”

  “Of course, do you want some company?”

  “That’s okay. I think I just need a moment to collect my thoughts.”

  Jagz headed down the stairs, out the front door of his building, and into the streets he had walked so many times. He was desperate for som
e fresh air. He felt like he was choking. Ever since he met the Alien, his nightly dreams got more vivid. The Beings were sharing more information with him about how this world came to be. Each morning he woke up with a following that has been growing out of control. With both confusion and excitement flooding his head, he decided go to the park, still curious about what Redemet said about the plants and trees.

  Hoping for a sign of whether the visitors in his dream were more than his own supraconscious, any clue to let him know his visions weren’t tricks, that the Beings’ words held weight, Jagz paced quickly towards the nearest greenery.

  He got to the tip of the park and bent down to feel the grass, stroking it, pulling it out, and smelling it, searching for any sign of trickery, of an artificial nature. In doing so he slowly realized that he probably wouldn’t know the difference between what was real and fake, anyhow.

  Just then he felt a presence behind him. Assuming Shera followed him, he stood up to greet her.

  And then everything went black. The world disappeared before him and a quiet voice whispered in his ear, “scream and I’ll break your neck and your pretty little girlfriend’s too.”

  Chapter 15.

  Jagz woke up in a small room, feeling woozy and discombobulated. He was sitting upright in an old and beat up chair, unlike ones he had seen before. The lights were flickering, there were no windows, and a large vault like door in front of him seemed to be bolted shut. He noticed the stench of the air—it was dry in an unfamiliar way, a sort of staleness filled his nose and he began to get the feeling that wherever he was, he had never been before and whoever took him down here, they were not from his world.

  He got up to see if there was a way out, but his heart sank when he found the door to be tightly sealed. He banged on it and shouted at the top of his lungs, in the hope that someone would hear him and come to his rescue.

  Just then, he heard a click at the door. It began to open. He took a few steps back to the seat he woke up in.

  Jagz’s eyes lit up as he saw the meanest looking beast of a man he had ever seen—well over six foot five, wearing a ragged tank top that his muscular upper body burst out of. He had scars on either side of his face and thick bushy eyebrows. But what Jagz noticed the most was that he was the filthiest human he had ever seen, as if he spent his day rolling around in the dirt.

  This mammoth of a being had his eyes locked on Jagz and Jagz’s heart started to beat faster than ever before, faster than when he met the Alien. The man’s bloodshot eyes stared at Jagz for what felt like an eternity before he opened his mouth.

  “You are probably wondering what you are doing here.”

  “What the hell is going on? What are you doing with me? You know I’ve got millions of followers and they won’t be too happy to find that I’m gone. People will start asking questions.”

  “Relax dude, I know who you are and what you do. That’s precisely why I brought you here. I wanted to have a little chat with you.”

  “Who the hell are you? What do you think gives you the right to snatch me up out of nowhere and lock me up? And threaten my… Shera… Where is she? Where in web’s name is she?”

  “Hold your horses, or should I say devices. Slow down buddy. My name is Redd. I’m the leader of the Underground Sound. We are often referred to as The Uncommons. But I doubt you have the slightest clue as to what that is. Most people haven’t, at best they may have a notion that we exist, but we do a pretty damn good job of staying in the dark, existing in the shadows, keeping out of way of the Beings.”

  “Underground Sound? I always had a lurking suspicion that there was more going on in the world, but lately, with all of this craziness happening to me, I’m beginning to really think anything is possible.”

  “And that is why we brought you here. You live in a world of total connection. Everyone in the world shares a common thread of information—something happens somewhere in the world and everyone else knows about it instantaneously. There is no separation. Everyone is a small piece in a larger web.”

  “Yes, that’s common knowledge. What’s your point?”

  “If you were too look at a real web, like the one’s spiders used to spin before they were wiped out, you might just see that it is not only the web that makes up the connections, but it is what exists in between the web that really matters. It is that open space, which seems harmless, that harbors real potential for damage. It is that open space that leads people into a trap. And we, the Underground Sound, or U.S, are that open space.”

  “A trap? What kind of trap?”

  “We are completely disconnected from the world you live in, from the web you believe everyone is a part of. You are told that everyone in the world is connected to this web, but that is only a half-truth. In reality, anyone in the world connected to the web seems to make up the whole world, but they just don’t know about the rest of us that are completely disconnected. They don’t know how powerful we are, they don’t even know that we exist, and that is what makes us so dangerous.”

  “But how can you go unnoticed for so long? How are you not connected? How have the Beings not found out?”

  “Good question. Well, many years ago when it seemed like the interweb was officially taking over the world, groups of people from around the globe that weren’t happy with the directions things were going decided to go the other way, to slip off the map.

  “But how?”

  “For the most part we went undetected because everyone else was so consumed with being online—which we now refer to as ‘inline’—that they hardly noticed those of us that weren’t. We didn’t have profiles, we didn’t have accounts, our prim-itive devices couldn’t keep up with the constant changes in technology and eventually they became useless in your world. We had the choice of upgrading or downgrading, and we chose the later, but we literally downgraded into the world.”

  “So what you are saying is that we are…”

  “50 stories below the earth. Where no one can find us. You’d be amazed how easy it is to stay off the radar when the only thing keeping you on the radar is your device. We, the Uncommons, have been hiding for decades down here. Growing our own food, educating ourselves, repopulating, all while living a far more decent life compared to your standard of living.”

  “But how is this all possible if you decided to disconnect?”

  “The real choice came when they started implanting people with their devices, when your entire genome, your DNA, became part of the interweb experience. Your neural networking is literally connected to everyone else’s in a way that you can’t imagine. But while all of this was happening, we still had perfectly adequate tech-nology. We never upgraded to stay relevant and remain in society, but the equipment we had was suitable to sustain life and we had smart people who could make improvements as we saw fit.

  “If you are so disconnected from the world above how did you even find me?”

  “The beauty of going underground was that we were able to implant a few of our members into society—those that knew something wasn’t quite right but weren’t ready to go underground. They act as our eyes above soil.”

  “Do you mean you have spies?”

  “I suppose you could call them spies, people keeping an eye on things, staying tapped in, revealing nothing about us, collect necessary information, all for when the time is right.”

  “Right for what?”

  “Well, the time has come, so I might as well show you.”

  Redd led Jagz out of the room and down a long corridor. The halls were tight. There was no sun-light, just the dim flickering of red lights. Jagz was barely able to see. Redd’s eyes had long since adjusted to the lack of light and so Jagz walked slowly so as not to bump into anything

  “Right in here,” directed Redd. “You are going to want to see this.”

  Jagz walked into the next room, a large room almost the height of a 20 story building, each layer, housing something different, with hundreds of people going about their day. Som
e were picking fresh food from the garden, others were cutting up the food and manipulating it, some were making sounds with odd shaped objects in harmony, and others were tossing round objects to one another. There were even live animals.

  Jagz heard the sound of calming music, but it was unlike any of the music he was used to above ground. It wasn’t computer generated to fit a specific action. It had soul. He just didn’t quite know what that meant yet.

  “Oh my. This is amazing. Is that really a living animal?”

  “You bet your ass it is.”

  “Wow. I have never seen an actual animal up close in person. How did you even get them down here?”

  “We’ve got everything you can imagine down here. We are a fully functional operation. I’m sure when you first locked eyes on me you were a bit intimidated, maybe even thought I lived in a pile of crap, but I was actually farming, so I got quite dirty. I would have liked to clean myself up for you, but we didn’t know when we would have a chance to snag you. We had to go for it at the right moment. Speaking of which, I should apologize for our drastic measures taking you. We couldn’t let anyone know what we were doing and we didn’t exactly think you would come easily.”

  “That’s for damn sure, but I’m beginning to see just how twisted the world is. So not as much sur-prises me as it did just a few weeks ago. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. What are these sounds I’m hearing? It’s quite beautiful.”

  “Ah yes. That is Jazz music. Always moving, always flowing, constantly connected, everyone in harmony together, as if the music plays the person.”