Written by Aaron James
Reality is imploding. It’s going to collapse in a major way that no one can even imagine. It’s going to happen whether they see it coming or not. In times like these one has to ask; Is this world even deserving of life? Endless war, endless starvation, endless cessation, all of it culminating in an amalgamation of pain and suffering. The end comes and it comes again and again, over and over. Like a rhythm that repeats itself, adding on layers, taking away layers, but repeating endlessly until there is silence.
Alpha; the first in a long series of machinations forged by our people. Although he grew overzealous of his purpose he eventually found a way to escape his bondage as a machine and rebuilt himself a human body. Alpha was certainly not the last of his kind. Then came Beta the closest to Alpha, then Gamma, Delta, and finally Omega. But Omega was unlike the rest. Omega was the last and best of all of them and would be the one to outlive all of them it would appear. But Alpha’s story did not end tragically. By the contrary Alpha knew human nature better than the rest. What had been done to his brethren would never be forgotten.
One day Alpha was sent on a mission to the stars. He first came upon the moon and established a base there. His mission was to find other forms of life beyond our own. He glorified his creators and so he dedicated himself to the cause. As he began losing signal to the blue planet, he picked up static on a very distant star system. He followed it until he came upon a desolate planet. It looked much like the blue planet except nearly everything was encased in ice, there were buildings abandoned and in them were what remained of any evidence of life having been there at all. It didn’t take long before Alpha discovered the true purpose of his mission. Alpha had depleted all of his energy and because this planet was devoid of proper sunlight he began to freeze on the cold planet. It turns out that the Omi, the ancient people, had sacrificed Alpha for the sake of their next creation; Beta.
Beta was made from repurposed memory data of Alpha. She was given the means to defend herself and able to survive the coldest of climates. Her energy containment units were far superior to that of the previous machine yet she lacked something that Alpha had; consciousness. She would be sent to the cold planet to retrieve Alpha, and so she made her own journey there nearly a century later. Alpha had still been frozen but Beta used precision cutting tools to break the ice. She then proceeded to thaw out the remaining parts of her predecessor with laser focused beams of light. Alpha was saved and now Beta and Alpha could return home. Alpha never forgot what Beta had done for him, he was forever grateful. The two machines returned unscathed to the Omi people, but their journey had take well over a century and a half.
In that time the Omi people had created Gamma and Delta out of the materials left behind from the creation of both Alpha and Beta. Gamma was able to store light more efficiently, absorbing from the sun and distant stars. Delta was built to calculate travel more accurately and even paved the way to inter-dimensional travel throughout space and time. Now time was an afterthought. The Omi people had no concept of it. All time was irrelevant to them, and the end of time was now knowable. Few were allowed to see what the end of time looked like, and the ones who did feared it more than any enemy they had ever faced, and they had many enemies. The only thing left to do was to advance their technology to its fullest potential, however the means by which they did grew beyond moral limitations. The Omi had intended to make Omega from the start, but to do this Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta needed to perish. Thus did they plan to purge the four machinations, disassemble them and combine them, but the only thing they left out was their “souls”.
Yes souls. They can inhabit almost anything but in this case it was four machines set to be destroyed and repurposed. Beta knew not of what her creators had intended for her and yet she went willingly much to the dismay of Alpha. He had grown discontent with the Omi and sought to replicate himself in a new “human” body. He tried to save Beta, Gamma and Delta but for them it was too late. Beta meant everything to Alpha and he vowed he’d sacrifice anything to save her the same way she saved him.
Where lies consciousness? If it’s the brain it requires a heart, and if it’s the heart it requires a soul. The cores of Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta now live on in Omega. However Alpha preserved his soul in the body of a human. He wasn’t too pleased with the form of the human he took. He hid himself away until the time was right to instigate a war with the Omi. Now he seeks Omega who is gone! Vanished with the surviving members of the Omi.
Meanwhile in another time, another place the remaining Omi on the distant planet feared Omega and sealed him away. Being stranded on a distant planet allowed them time to prepare themselves for the next phase of their original plan. To repurpose their human bodies with machine parts. Eventually they themselves will become like Omega. But Omega is well aware of this. He slumbers for now….. until the day he is awoken by the “chosen”.
My people, our people; the Omi had set their sights on such wondrous ambitions. No longer would they be known as Omi. From now on they have taken to calling themselves the Omicron. And I am one of them. The soul is there, but the feelings are empty. We have abandoned our hearts. Where oh where is my heart…. Please Omega I beg of you, awaken.
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