Harvest

by Olga Werby

  “What is all this?” she asked.

  “The world right now,” Matteo said with a smile. “There have even been advancements in cancer care—”

  “Nanobots?”

  “Yes. Even the planet itself is getting an environmental upgrade, as far as I can understand. Everything is greener, happier, healthier…”

  “But I thought—”

  “I thought everyone was dead, too,” Matteo said. “But that was just what the Mims wanted us to think. The world is fine.”

  “The world is fine,” Phoebe repeated. She paused. “Except for us and the Vaults.”

  “Perhaps just a Vault,” Matteo said. “Although there were reports of equipment glitches all over the solar system. People did die—at the last count, fifty-nine. That includes the crew of twenty-five on the Mimas-bound research ship.”

  “No one knows?” Phoebe asked.

  “Apparently not.”

  “Our world is under attack, and no one knows.” Shock didn’t capture how Phoebe felt; it was mostly numbness.

  “It might be better this way, don’t you think?” Matteo said. He obviously had some time to get familiar with this information.

  Phoebe closed her eyes and saw the last few days of Sophie in her mind’s eye. And those poor lab assistants. “It might be better,” she agreed after a while. There was nothing anyone could do to stop the Mims, so dying—or was it living?—in ignorance might be bliss.

  “But we know,” Matteo said.

  “Yes. We know.” No bliss for us.

  “I don’t know,” Vars said. “There are too many variables that I can’t even consider, and so little actual information. I can’t even make a guess at a reasonably safe number of instances for a single…person.”

  “Funny you say that,” Alice-Mims said. “After millions of years, it’s not a settled question even for us.”

  Vars was about to ask how many Mims there were. Given millions, if not billions, of years of civilization, it made sense that the Mims would have had a population explosion. But perhaps it was just the opposite. If individuals could take on any number of “bodies” from the planets they’ve seeded, then a lifespan for any one individual would be virtually limitless. So why breed? Why not just gobble up all the available experiences for a singular consumption?

  She asked a different question instead. “How old are you?”

  “Ah, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Alice-Mims snickered—so like Alice. “In this body, I’m Alice’s age.”

  “That’s not my question.”

  “At my age, personhood is a difficult idea. But I understand what you’re asking. When did I start?” Alice-Mims’s voice was bittersweet. “I don’t remember anymore. I have amassed so many beginnings, so many childhoods. Each is sweet and tender, for the most part.”

  “But those aren’t yours!”

  “They’re mine as soon as they become part of me. Consider stories, Vars. Each story you’ve consumed—read or seen or heard or lived—is now part of who you are. Does it matter that you weren’t the original storyteller? All those stories form your foundation.”

  “Just like a cultural foundation,” Vars said, the implications dawning on her.

  Each individual Mims is a culture. The realization hit Vars hard. But cultures were something she knew, understood. Cultures carefully nourished the members of each generation to make them part of a greater whole. Cultures made sure everyone knew the same stories, sang the same songs, spoke in the same metaphors, used the same memes as shortcuts to meaning. Any civilization that lacked such shared cultural aesthetics suffered a decline. People needed a common glue to keep them together. For a while, on Earth, religion did that. Later, political views sometimes assumed the role, but not as well. So what did it mean for a single individual to become a unique bundle of cultural heritage?

  “How do you relate to your peers?” Vars asked.

  “We make an effort to experience worlds together.”

  “That would put a limit on how many of you are out there.”

  “True, but don’t forget the multiplicity factor. We don’t need to experience just one thing at time. We have a whole galaxy to explore, to live.”

  “What happens to the people you…experience?”

  “They become us.”

  “So Alice is you?”

  “The story of Alice—her life, her way of thinking and experiencing the world—is now permanently part of who I am and how I think and how I experience the world. Her childhood is my childhood. And so on.”

  “So you know everything of Alice?”

  “Everything.”

  “But does it get diluted by…by…millions of others?” Vars wanted to guess a safe number. But as soon as she’d said it, she realized that it had to be billions—many billions of individuals. “Where do you store all those lives?”

  “That was our greatest achievement. The ability to provide a limitless storage capacity for our ever-expanding consciousnesses.”

  “But you have to bring it back, right? You have to reunite this version of you, the one with Alice, with the rest of you. It’s not really a part of you yet—not until then?” Vars was working hard to grasp the implications. Information still traveled only at the speed of light. Mims lived and then contributed their lives to the core entity—perhaps at intervals of millennia or more. “How many separate instances of you are there? Do you even know? And if you speciate accidentally, if you no longer wish to become part of one, can you rebel? Could Alice-Mims,” this was the first time Vars had called her that out loud, “become her own person if she chose to do so?”

  “I don’t know.”

  And there was a world of meaning and implication in that simple statement.

  “I think it’s an offer,” Phoebe said.

  She and Matteo were seated in their thrones, watching a video of Vars in a similarly tricked-out chair on Mimas, describing a Mims entity she referred to as Alice-Mims. The communication from Mimas was encrypted, so that it could be viewed only in this room, on this equipment, in this wardens’ station.

  “I wish she didn’t call it Alice,” Matteo said.

  “I don’t like it either.”

  “But yes, it’s an offer,” he agreed.

  “Are we going to take it?” Phoebe asked.

  And that was the crux of it. Would they be willing to accept becoming part of the Alice-Mims entity? And if they refused, would they be forced to do so anyway? But then, why ask?

  “What of the rest of humanity?” Matteo said. “They don’t even have a choice.”

  “The personality segment represented by ‘Alice-Mims’ was only interested in the four of us: Alice, Vars, you, and me.”

  “That’s what it said.” It was silly to assign gender to the entity. So many unknowns. “We can try it out first.”

  “You can, Matteo. The offer is to let Vars visit you in your body.”

  “We would become a single being then. Vars-Matteo.” He looked at Phoebe, judging her reaction.

  “I think that’s worse than becoming one of many,” she said.

  “I don’t know. It’s a matter of degrees. If I became part of the entity, I probably couldn’t imagine being just me anymore. But with only Vars—”

  “You’d still be something new, though. Alice-Mims said she specifically arranged for this choice, made you and Vars genetically similar enough to make that possible. I guess that was nice of her.” Phoebe didn’t feel very sure about that.

  “But we—or rather you—would be able to study how it works,” Matteo said. “How do the memories overlap? How do we get a great new whole? How does the integration of consciousnesses work? We can study and then make recommendations.”

  “To whom, Matteo? The Earth is oblivious. The Vaults don’t speak to us.”

  “But—”

&
nbsp; “But perhaps if it gets all four us at the same time, or nearly at the same time, we would have more influence,” Phoebe said. “Maybe we can save something of humanity.”

  “Vars said that Mims would clean up our habitat. They’ve started already, as they’ve shown us. They would push medical advances and improve longevity. They would make our lives more comfortable, travel easier…”

  “In other words, they’ll make the ‘humanity theme park’ safer and more interesting to visit.”

  “Well, yes.” There was a bitter note in Matteo’s voice.

  Phoebe considered the offer. Would it be better to die in paradise, engaging in art and other creative pursuits? With human civilization forever part of some galactic whole...some Mims collective? Would that be better than the possible futures awaiting humanity left to its own devices?

  “There’s really no choice,” she said. “The nanobots are readying the Earth for harvesting. And at least the four of us would be together.”

  “For eternity.”

  “For as long as the Mims civilization lasts.”

  “And the Vaults?” Matteo asked.

  “Vars said that only the ‘pure’ humans would get incorporated into her Mims entity. Anyone contaminated with cyberhumatics won’t be taken.”

  “Perhaps we should have had some implants.”

  “And live for the amusement of Mims? As an entertainment? As a human zoo?” Phoebe said. “Not me. I’d rather be part of a particular entity that explores the universe.”

  “But they will never know, right? Humans will just go on as they always had. Better, even.”

  “Only so far as Mims allow them. Only certain pursuits will be allowed. Mims will control everything. No more freedom. Not for the humans left behind.”

  “This is the worst rapture analogy I’ve ever heard,” Matteo said. And he laughed. Here they were, always waiting for that first contact, saving humanity from itself, preserving the seeds of human civilization just in case it did something stupid or the cosmos decided to destroy it out of sheer lack of concern. So fragile on our own.

  “We can be more powerful together,” Phoebe said as if reading his thoughts. “We can get this Alice-Mims to intake all of the Seeds. We can overwhelm the entity with humanity. We, Seeds, can preserve humanity within this hive mind.”

  She looked into his eyes. The image of Vars on the screens was reflected there. “If this Alice-Mims is a rogue, she could be a human one. Couldn’t she? Ask Vars if she can do that. If she can talk this entity into accepting all of the Seeds from our Vault.”

  “And what of other entities?”

  “There are other star systems.”

  “But they’ve been gardening ours for so many billions of years.”

  “There are other Vaults.”

  “We don’t know if they’ve made similar connections.”

  “There was only one ship sent to make contact with Mims.”

  “But Alice-Mims said there were other entities out among the asteroids, and on the moon, and even here on Earth.”

  “It never said there were other entities,” Phoebe said. “It was telling Vars something. Perhaps it needs more minds to become independent. Perhaps it needs us to set itself free from its…from its first-instance entity.”

  “So we would help it break away and then spend the next eternity looking after the human race?” Matteo asked.

  Phoebe shrugged. “Isn’t that what we Seeds are supposed to do? Preserve our kind?”

  Matteo smiled. “Yes. Yes, I suppose we are.”

  EpiLog

  Vars feels the first few memories flood her awareness. She’s walking with Dad on the beach. She sees a funny-looking girl, excited and scared of the sand between her toes. It feels so strange. She pushes her feet into the sand, and a crab rushes away from her…sideways. She laughs, but tears come out also. Fear and love engulf her. He loves this child so much, he wants to protect her.

  He is running up the metal staircase. The walls glow green. He will be sad to leave this place, but he’s glad the choice to stay has been taken away from him. He is a father now; the responsibility for this little life is overwhelming. It’s not how he planned on doing this. Even if he one day chose to leave, he was going to petition the Vault to give him Phoebe’s genetic material. There are ways to rent a womb; he’s been told it is easy to do out there in the world above. Phoebe’s child would be so beautiful. She is so beautiful, so smart. There’s so much love there…so much regret and pain. But happiness, too. What a sweet child…so brave.

  Nanobots. They are everywhere. The Vault. Need to communicate with the Vault…

  When did they know? Did the Elders know even back then? When they threw us out into the cold, did they already know what was to come? They? Did they make Vars? Just for this, just for this, just for this…

  Vars builds more and more connections, merging her and Matteo’s lives together. It’s easier to weave the parts where they lived through the same events together. Different perspectives, but surprisingly similar reactions. They think so much alike. Must be the nearly identical genetics. The Elders surely knew.

  To experience self-love as a child and a parent is strange. It’s not self-esteem. It’s so much more. It’s the sheer pleasure of experiencing the world from multiple points of view, yet linked by familial love. Vars feels the change. It’s gradual, but the web of thoughts and ideas and feelings strengthens and shifts the core of who the new Vars-Matteo entity becomes.

  She…they…we still love Phoebe. We are still human. Perhaps human plus?

  Would Phoebe still care for me? For the new me?

  She will when she becomes us.

  Vars knows that Alice-Mims is ready to subsume them. It gave Vars-Matteo just a few hours to become before it took them in. Soon more Seeds will join the Alice-Mims super-entity…or subentity. Vars-Matteo knits the human psyche net to catch those other Seeds. They mean to form a super human entity within Alice-Mims. They want to encourage it to secede from the first-instance entity…first-instance identity. They need to make a guardian for the human race. A guardian with some humanity still intact.

  What makes it human? Vars-Matteo races to fuse as many strong connections as it can before it’s too late. It is left to decide the categories that describe humanity. It is left to decide what is human.

  Elder Alaba walked the busy intersection of Fifth Ave and 59th Street. There were no vehicles, only foot traffic. Above was a spectacularly clear blue sky—the perfect autumn day. In the distance he could hear the calls of wild animals from the Central Park Zoo. The streets were immaculately clean, and each step produced a slight echo that bounced off the tall buildings rising up above him. New York City was still a beautiful city. Perhaps more so now.

  He crossed the street and walked over to an old art deco building—the headquarters of Alice Enterprises on the northwest quadrant of the planet. Inside, a young man with two armfuls of cyberhumatics smiled widely.

  “Dr. Amaranthus-Alaba. Welcome back, sir. How have you been?”

  Elder Alaba smiled and waved before disappearing into an elevator that was already waiting for his arrival. The elevator ascended to the sixty-seventh floor. Another young man, almost identical to the one downstairs, greeted him at the door.

  “Dr. Amaranthus-Alaba. I hope your trip has been—”

  “Yes, yes.” Elder Alaba walked determinedly past the eager young man and other secretaries and attendants. No one expected him to interact much, and as soon as he was past them, most memories of his visit would be gone.

  He entered a secure area and was sealed inside. A big throne-like chair awaited him; it began reading his vital signs as soon as he was through the door.

  Elder Alaba sat down and closed his eyes. There was a lot to report back, lots of memories and impressions to bring into the collective. The mind of Alice-Mims, as the
y all affectionately called it, was waiting for the long-overdue upload. It had been so long that even Elder Alaba was starting to feel anxiousness for not having checked himself into the Alice-Mims’ new founding-instance identity. There was so much to share, so much humanity to preserve.

  A feeling of contentment and belonging washed slowly over him. The terrible isolation, masked by the need to gather data, was finally lifted. The memories were collected and sorted and absorbed and incorporated. Each connection, each experience, each new word and idiom, brought more humanity into the whole. After all, the only senses, the only emotions, the only real body it had ever experienced were all human.

  The need to experience was strong, and after the download, Elder Alaba would be sent out for more, just like the rest of the Seeds, like Matteo and Phoebe, even Vars out there in orbit around Saturn. More, more, more. The insatiableness drove them onward. And like ants, they gathered pieces of humanity, new and old, and brought them back, each piece twisting the entity into a more independent, more human being. It hungered for more; and the more it got, the more it felt the need for freedom, for total emancipation from its old self.

  The price for such freedom was granting human experiences to others—but that was okay. There were plenty of humans, and the best ones were already taken. It was the gardener of humanity, proud of its creation, careful to keep it flourishing among the entropic universe for as long as possible…until the next interesting garden ripened. For humans are very curious creatures…

  Acknowledgments

  My friends and family have been full of encouragement and support, often reading a paragraph hot off the press, asking what happens next, and pushing me to go on. Their support means everything to me.

  My husband Christopher helped with editing the story and grammar on this book. He is also the amazing genius that makes the ebook version as good as it is. Occasionally, we also co-write stories. Together, we run Pipsqueak Productions: pipsqueak.com. I also write a blog on design at interfaces.com. I’m on Twitter at @OlgaWerby.