EHuman Dawn (6 page)

All the activity gave a strong impression of a noisy place, but it was actually eerily quiet. No one was having an audible conversation. Every eHuman was online and communicating wirelessly with the others via Neuro. Funny, Adam never thought of it as strange before.

“Come on, let’s go, Adam,” a voice whispered from behind.

He turned to see Dawn. She was still very beautiful—and still very intense. Her golden hair was tied back from her face, making her green eyes even more prominent. She wore a tight
black rubber cat suit that covered her entire body. On her hands were gloves of the same material and her feet had boots that were made for walking long distances. A backpack was cinched to her body.

“Nice outfit,” he said.

She smiled at him. Adam had a feeling she didn’t do that much. It suited her.

He got up and followed her out the door.

The evening sky was bright. The city lights reflected back strongly from the thick layer of smog that blanketed the sky. The streets were full of people milling past them. Adam found it odd that no one took notice of the strangely clad woman beside him. Of course, most of them were probably on some sort of chat-room call, while also watching a Newsreel or other evening programming as they walked. MultiApping was a lot more common than paying attention to what was going on.

Bringing in new recruits was one of the most dangerous jobs in the Resistance. It had been a while since Dawn had left Headquarters to unplug someone from the grid. Usually, the job was left to someone less important to the movement.

But this was Adam Winter. She’d been waiting a long time to meet him. Over one hundred and fifty years, to be exact. She couldn’t trust the job to anyone else.

Dawn walked briskly. She continued along the street for a few blocks, then turned a corner and headed west. She continued around several more corners until they came to a nondescript building about five blocks from the jazz club, in a lonely part of town. Pushing open a solid door, Dawn quickly slipped behind it. Adam looked up and down the street and then reluctantly followed her into the gloom.

He switched his optical mode to night vision to see more clearly, making out Dawn’s form ahead as she led him down several flights of stairs. They were obviously in the basement. They advanced down a dark tunnel towards a single door at the end. When they arrived, Dawn knocked on the door using a distinct rhythm. A similar rhythm returned her knock and the door opened. She pushed Adam in first, manually closing the door behind them.

They entered a long, narrow, rectangular room. The walls on either side were covered with shelves where boots, rain gear, backpacks and weapons stood at attention in neat rows, waiting to be commissioned for service. The wall at the end of the room was made up of several video screens. They displayed various images, rooms full of people and windows that had thousands of digits running down them in several columns. Still others streamed live Newsreels from all over the world.

“
This is amazing!” Adam blurted out.

“Yes,” answered a deep, male voice, “It is, isn’t it?”

Adam spun around and discovered that he and Dawn were not alone. A man, dressed in similar garb as Dawn, stood just behind the door. Adam hadn’t noticed him when he walked in. The man had white hair, so white it looked like fresh snow, parted into several long dreadlocks which formed a frame around his face that contrasted against his dark chocolate skin and intense yellow, cat-like eyes. He almost seemed to sneer at Adam before turning to address Dawn.

“Everything work out alright? You weren’t followed, were you?” he asked. Adam noticed he had a European accent, probably northern.

Dawn turned to a blank video panel and touched three icons on the screen. They enlarged to show the lobby of the building they’d just entered, the street outside the building and the hallway in front of the room they were in. No signs of life.

“All clear,” she answered. Then she turned to Adam, “Adam, this is Origen. Origen, Adam.”

Origen held out his hand without hesitating, and Adam shook it. The handshake was firm and sure. Origen gave every impression that he was a man to not to be messed with. His energy filled the room. Adam suddenly felt very insignificant.

Origen nodded to him. “You’re awfully quiet for a Newsreel host. Anyway, let’s get you fitted for an energy pack. And then we’ll tell you who we are—and what happens next.”

Origen walked to one of the shelves along the wall. He pulled down a black canvas backpack. He gestured to Adam, who approached with trepidation, and fitted it on to his back. It secured tightly around his front. There was a significant weight to it and the pockets on the outside were filled with equipment.

“Is this my camping gear?” Adam asked. He nearly laughed. The intensity of his situation was starting to make him feel giddy.

“That and more,” Origen answered, “In the outside pockets are knives, climbing rope, waterproof gloves, a hat and mask, and small explosives, in case you need them. Packed inside, is your life link.” With that, Origen stepped behind Adam and pulled out a long, copper wand that attached to a flexible, golden, metal cord that disappeared into the energy pack. He put the wand in front of Adam’s face and instantly Adam recognized it: a plug.

“But how?” Adam began.

“Don’t worry, you don’t go into the network. The plug fits into your outlet and the recharger is hidden in the energy pack. The unit is full and can completely recharge your Chi-Regulator in about four hours—”

Adam’s face lit up at this statement.

“Yes,” Origen continued, “Fifty percent faster than what you’re used to.”

“But what do you mean full?” Adam inquired.

“It extracts the energy of the sun,” Origen explained, “Then it converts that stored energy into electricity, which recharges your Chi-Regulator.”

“The energy of the sun?” Adam was astounded, “I don’t understand.”

“Plug him in. Then take a seat, Adam,” Dawn spoke, “We need to get down to business and we have much to share with you.”

Origen grinned at Dawn affectionately as she passed him to sit upon the couch. While she began to touch the table top, Origen plugged Adam into the pack. Instantly Adam could feel the energy pulsing from the pack to his Chi-Regulator. Adam turned and looked at Origen, who was now sitting closely beside Dawn on the couch across from him.

Adam was surprised to notice he felt jealous, making him suddenly feel like the fool. He’d destroyed all of his belongings and given up his life in order to follow this woman. For some reason, it had never crossed his mind that she would probably already be involved with someone else. What an absolute idiot he was. He sat slowly down on a couch opposite the couple and gazed at the screen top table that was between them.

Two visuals were displayed. One was of a group of twelve beautiful people, including Dawn and Origen. The second showed a thin man with a serious face. Wrinkles surrounded his brilliant blue eyes, almost hidden by his wire-rimmed glasses. Gray hair stuck out from his head at all angles. An unnatural covering of hair along his jawline surprised Adam. Facial hair was a rare eHuman decoration. Of course, so were wrinkles—and this man had plenty of them.

“At the beginning of this millennium,” Origen began, “research had just begun to take off with regards to the technology needed to create and sustain the eHuman. Those in the field of
quantum physics began to postulate that perhaps the human being was more than just various forms of carbon molecules bound together. Perhaps other particles, like electromagnetic energy particles, such as photons and sound waves, had something to do with our makeup. It was Dr. James Neville,” Origen pointed to the image of the serious man, “who discovered that the human being was made up of not one, but three bodies: The physical, carbon-based body we all know as the flesh, a torus-shaped electromagnetic field we call the etheric energy body, and lastly, an individual light body, comprised of consciously coalesced photon particles. We know this as the Lux. These three worked as a unit, with the etheric energy body being the entity that attracted the Lux to the carbon body to inhabit it, the way metal is attracted to a magnet. The etheric body kept the threefold organism together.

“The eHuman was created to replace the flesh, and the Chi-Regulator was invented to generate the etheric energy body so that the Lux would inhabit the eHuman form—and voila, the Dawn Project was born. A few decades later, the first successful eHuman, Dawn here,” she winced as he spoke of it, “was created. After two more years of intense work on the part of the Dawn Project research team and a company called Guardian Networks, Neuro was invented and the Dawn Project went public, ushering in the Great Shift. A brilliant public campaign was the catalyst created to convince the people that it was a good idea to ditch their flesh bodies and become eHumans.”

Adam looked at them with astonishment. Flesh? Etheric energy? He had never thought to think of these things before. What had they looked like before the Great Shift? How different was the eHuman from the original, carbon-based, human form?

“That public campaign was led by the Original Twelve,” Dawn continued, cutting into his thoughts, her hands opening to the table top image of the group of beautiful people, “Also
known as the O12. Origen and I, along with ten others, were the first set of eHumans created. We were sent out on a campaign around the world, to convince everyone to willingly take on an eHuman existence. The president of the United States of America at the time, Ruth Donavan, as well as leaders from other major countries, joined us.

“One of the main reasons for Jumping, as it began to be called, was to support a newer, greener and more prosperous society. Human civilization had collapsed. Unemployment was over thirty percent. Gas was rationed, as was electricity and heat to homes and offices. Food was scarce because the soil could no longer support growing enough food to feed the increasing population. Due to agricultural debauchery, much of the farmland was no longer fertile. The water supply was also compromised, causing most marine life to be endangered.

“We were on the brink of world war and disaster. Six of every ten people had one form or another of a terrible, often fatal disease called cancer, or other environmental diseases.”

“The eHuman existence was a perfect solution to all our problems,” Origen said. “We wouldn’t have to eat or drink, solving the global hunger issue. No more fighting for the little bit of land that was left. Water issues would disappear, as well as illness, aging and dying.

“Most important for those in power, we’d no longer reproduce. No eHuman can give birth to another. The number of individuals on the planet would now be held steady, with no one coming or going...unless there was an accident. The industries that supported birth and death were also added to the list of things to be abandoned in the new era. In addition, all new cities being built would be powered by an efficient Energy Grid that would be managed by Neuro. Our every need would be met in a timely, and individualized, way.”

“This story seems familiar,” Adam said, searching his oldest memories. “I remember attending an O12 rally as a Newsreel reporter. But what does this have to do with your work as an anti-WG organization?”

“Ah,” Origen picked back up the story, “that’s the crux. It took about ten years to build over 200,000 new eHuman-capable cities and Jump all 7.6 billion people to the eHuman platform. ‘The World Back To Work’ was the slogan for the labor movement needed to pull off this monumental task. When we moved into our new cities, we switched not only to a new era of immortal living, but also to a new world of efficiency and democracy under the newly formed World Government! We would live forever and ever, as one united people, without the threats of famine, war, or disease. Or so the story went.”

“And the story’s been true. We’ve lived forever in a better world, haven’t we? So why rebel against it?” Adam wanted to know.

“The eHuman has been successful,” Dawn answered, “Yet at what cost to our freedom and individual rights? What good is immortality, if it’s completely under the control of the WG, who can switch off our lives simply because a group of people chose to live or think a different way?”

Adam was silent.

“Early on,” Dawn continued, “it was discovered that human memory couldn’t survive very long after a Jump. It was widely assumed that our memory in the flesh was stored in our brains. But since brains are organic, there was no way to extract or store its data, except perhaps in human consciousness; our Lux. Dr. Neville and his scientists had hoped that local memory consciousness would follow the Lux into the eHuman body. I was the first successful Jump. When I opened my eyes, I did recall what had just happened to me and who I’d been in the flesh.
But slowly, over a period of three days, my memories began to disappear. Eventually, I could no longer recall a single moment of my pre-Great Shift life. This was the case time and again, for each of us in the O12.”

“This failure to remember things of the flesh helped those in power devise the plan for the Great Shift,” Origen continued. “As the politicians plotted together, they architected not only new cities, but a whole New World Order, starting from scratch with all of society ignorant that it was new or different in any way. In this new world, only one entity would provide power to the Energy Grid—the WG themselves. This meant that whenever any city, group, or individual disagreed with WG policy, a simple flick of the switch would wipe out their electricity. Since the new cites only have rail and airline to connect them, and the WG owns those as well, there’s virtually no chance to escape a city-wide shutdown. Complete power over us. Which was never part of the original Great Shift promise.”

“And no one could argue with it, since no one remembered huh?” Adam responded.

“Only those in the government and the O12 knew the Great Shift campaign promises. So yes—they got away with it because the other 7.6 billion people didn’t know any better,” Dawn replied bitterly.

“But the Guardians, not the WG, have complete control of Neuro and the LMOs, correct?” Adam asked.