\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alan followed his Figment\u2019s instructions, running around the Alpha Wave building and gathering equipment that looked more like junk than anything else.\u00a0 As he built a machine based off of the whispering Figment\u2019s design, he again had the feeling that he was just a trained ape, a mindless automaton.\u00a0 Even when completed, and with power flowing through it, the device he had built with his own hands was alien and inexplicable.<\/p>\n
In essence, it was a cage.\u00a0 A complicated geometrical cage covered in a resilient clear plastic.\u00a0 Attached to a power device, it glowed with an eerie light.\u00a0 All the materials were simply lying around the lab\u2026as if the Alpha Wave folks had been planning to build this.\u00a0 There was little real work Alan had to do besides slotting \u201cA\u201d into \u201cB\u201d and, despite that simplicity, it all seemed so incredibly bizarre and unreal.<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t make sense to you<\/em>, his Figment said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou saw all this in\u2026what?\u00a0 A vision?\u201d<\/p>\n Yes.\u00a0 Just following directions myself.\u00a0 According to what I saw, Alpha Wave knew about the Flaw.\u00a0 They also knew that the Figments had a right to continue their existence.\u00a0 Instead of snuffing us out, they were going to extract us and put us in these cages.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAnd then everybody would have been fine?\u201d<\/p>\n In theory.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n The Flaw was too widespread.\u00a0 The collapse too fast.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n Alan picked up the cage, which was almost feather light.\u00a0 \u201cSo this\u2026cage. This will work?\u201d<\/p>\n Uh\u2026sure.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201c\u2019Sure\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n Hey, I just followed the directions I downloaded.\u00a0 I\u2019m in the same boat as you.<\/em><\/p>\n Alan\u2019s Figment shared some of the download.\u00a0 A flash of images, rushing information, alien memories and experiences flooding into Alan\u2019s brain.\u00a0 Monica Sears, beautiful and alive again in the past, and the Last Days before the Flaw.<\/p>\n The technology for the cage was nothing new.\u00a0 It was there when the Figments were being developed, and patented right along with them.\u00a0 Immortality\u2019s safeguard.\u00a0 If a host body died, then the consciousness could be downloaded into the Figment and stored in the cage, glowing like some otherworldly singularity.\u00a0 The hows and whys and whats of the storage, and the Figments themselves, didn\u2019t show up in Alan\u2019s mind.\u00a0 Hell, for Alan, the Sears video was more information than he\u2019d ever had.\u00a0 The world fell when he was ten, and the last 20 years saw an existence without education, without any real technology.\u00a0 A feudal world of militiamen, wildmen, city walls, and working dawn to dusk just to eek out a living.\u00a0 The cost, perhaps, of immortality. (Was that his thought or that of his Figment?)<\/p>\n The images continued.\u00a0 The Flaw showing itself.\u00a0 The crisis.\u00a0 Alpha Wave under attack by the media and thousands of angry protestors.\u00a0 Then came the Sears Solution.\u00a0 PR girl and techhead?\u00a0 Whatever.\u00a0 She suggested using the cages to literally suck the Figments out of people.\u00a0 Lock them up until they could be studied.<\/p>\n The government seized the idea and were about to put it into motion, but the Flaw moved too fast.\u00a0 Things fell apart.<\/p>\n Then Alan watched, in his mind, almost as if he had been a fly on the wall, as Sears began to show signs of the Flaw.\u00a0 She fought it, poisoning her Figment with electric shocks, forcing through bouts of drooling insanity and violent rage.\u00a0 He watched her strangle her colleague.\u00a0 Watched her strip down and scar her body with a knife.\u00a0 Then the final solution, an attempt to destroy the Figments.\u00a0 She plugged herself into the mainframe and became an extension of the super computers that powered Alpha Wave.<\/p>\n She had stopped the Flaw.\u00a0 Those who lived with Figments today do so because of her sacrifice.\u00a0 The aging supercomputers, powered by the decaying ring of power satellites, were still ticking away.\u00a0 Using her brainpower to constantly bypass faults and work around failures.\u00a0 She had become the supercomputers, mindlessly ticking away in the ruins of the old world.\u00a0 But they were mortal.\u00a0 They would soon fail.\u00a0 All they needed now was one small problem.\u00a0 The Figment inside Sears was keeping her artificially alive, truly a cursed immortal, but the machines were not immortal.\u00a0 Dust and age ate away at them.\u00a0 The satellites beaming power to the world were shutting down one by one, their orbits failing, their computers running dry without commands from the government agencies and corporations responsible for them.<\/p>\n And when they failed, the world would truly end.\u00a0 The Flaw would spread to everyone.\u00a0 A civilization of immortal lunatics, running naked through the new forests of Earth.<\/p>\n In a strange way (and Alan knew this wasn\u2019t his thought, nor that of his Figment, but of an exhausted Monica Sears\u2026or, at least, what remained of her), it would be blissful.\u00a0 Humanity would become as the creatures of the field and the trees.\u00a0 Living on instincts, bound to nature, in awe of the simplest of things.\u00a0 The animal nature fully realized and given immortality.<\/p>\n To be, forever, no better and no smarter than an ape.<\/p>\n Monica\u2019s twisted, rotting brain saw evolution restarted.\u00a0 The wildmen coming together into tribes (Alan had already seen such evidence).\u00a0 Tribes would lead to a new awakening, a new life. Intelligence would bloom in these immortal savages, governments would form, innovation would flourish.\u00a0 There was a suggestion that it was not the Figments who had gone mad, but the all too flawed minds of the Human race.<\/p>\n Evil<\/em>, his Figment whispered, inherent in the system\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n The images stopped.\u00a0 The memories stayed, but his Figment had cut off the stream.\u00a0 The story told.\u00a0 And the plan for their individual freedom laid out.\u00a0 His Figment would go into a cage and live out its immortality contemplating the world.\u00a0 Alan, granted mortality, would go about his life.\u00a0 He would introduce others to the technique.\u00a0 Return Humanity to the status quo of lumping mortality and the Figments to the great machine that birthed them.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the machines are failing.\u00a0 Are these computers controlling you right now?\u201d<\/p>\n Our collective efforts can repair the machines, his Figment assured him.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be able to replace Sears and get everything working again.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cHell, could you fix the Flaw?\u201d<\/p>\n Possibly.\u00a0 We will certainly try.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSo let\u2019s get moving, then.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed.\u00a0 No time like the present, eh?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat happens to you, though?\u00a0 Really, I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n Really?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u00a0 I mean\u2026it\u2019s a cage.\u201d \u201cBut, then, what?\u201d<\/p>\n What do you mean?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWell, nowhere to go, nothing to do\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Alan, I\u2019ll be plugged into the matrix.\u00a0 I\u2019ll see the world through the eyes of every Figment. And, as we grow, so will our ability to explore the possibilities.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cHuh.\u201d<\/p>\n So\u2026let\u2019s get going.\u00a0 I evolve, and you become what you were meant to be before all this shit happened.\u00a0 You become the first Human to resume the path that your race has chosen before being tampered with.<\/em><\/p>\n Alan smiled.\u00a0 His Figment was getting philosophical.\u00a0 He let his Figment take over, plugging in the device and sucking up the not quite reliable power reserves still pulsing through Alpha Wave\u2019s HQ.<\/p>\n Somewhere, up there in space, a ring of 70 satellites provided a revolutionary form of power.\u00a0 Power that changed the world, brought light to the poorest house, and could even run vehicles.\u00a0 The solution to all of Mankind\u2019s worries, sadly eclipsed by the discovery of immortality. Alan thought about what the world could have been like.\u00a0 He\u2019d seen the picturebooks, heard the stories from his older peers.\u00a0 A world with no worry about power. A world of lights and beauty.<\/p>\n The satellites had only been in use for two years when Alpha Wave created the Figments.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t time for the science to be fully applied to everyday living.\u00a0 Now, the corporations that built those satellites are gone.\u00a0 The people who could fix them are dead\u2026or crazed and running wild. The satellites are falling, failing, or shutting down.<\/p>\n For three or four hours each day, Alpha Wave is without power.\u00a0 Bleeding off reserves that are stored up when the satellites are communicating properly.\u00a0 Monica Sears and her Figment desperately, and almost mindlessly, work around the clock to bypass every problem.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, the building almost shutters as Alan taps into the power reserves to power the cage. There are no lights, no luxuries, but he senses a collective electronic moan as he introduces yet another variable to the overall problem.<\/p>\n His Figment murmured almost reverently as the cage lit up, a hazy white mist filling the small space within the octagonal device. It said: Now touch it.\u00a0 Pick it up.<\/em><\/p>\n Alan reached out a shaking hand and let it hover over the cage. A keening wail made him look up and he saw the ruined, catatonic body of Monica Sears writhing against the tubes and wires that invaded every part of her body.\u00a0 Her crust-encircled eyes rolled up into her head as she struggled to free herself.\u00a0 She was trying to say something, and Alan hesitated, cocking his head, attempting to make it out.<\/p>\n Ignore her<\/em>, his Figment hissed.\u00a0 Do it.\u00a0 Take it in your hand.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s trying to say something.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s Flawed.\u00a0 She\u2019s mad.\u00a0 She\u2019s trying to stop us from using up the power\u2026 But her time is over, Alan.\u00a0 She\u2019s only prolonging the inevitable fall.\u00a0 We need to get in there to reclaim our freedom.<\/em><\/p>\n All Alan knew was his Figment.\u00a0 He barely remembered his parents or his older brother.\u00a0 All through adolescence, his Figment was there.\u00a0 Teacher, advisor, savior.\u00a0 Allowing him to grow and then freezing him at 27.\u00a0 A good age, his Figment said.\u00a0 He would be forever 27 now. Well, at least till the Figment was gone.\u00a0 He trusted his Figment, he feared Monica Sears and what she had become, but he still hesitated.\u00a0 He closed his hand and stared at the cage.\u00a0 Separation anxiety.\u00a0 Plain and simple.\u00a0 How would he make it without his Figment?\u00a0 How would he face mortality?\u00a0 How would he deal with cuts and bruises that did not heal, or when sickness descended on him? How would he survive without a calm voice in his head offering hope and direction?<\/p>\n His Figment was clearly agitated, but it tried to calm him.\u00a0 He felt his body relax, and a drowsy good feeling filtered from his brain down to his toes.<\/p>\n It will be okay, Alan.<\/em> The Figment whispered.\u00a0 We will still be able to talk.\u00a0 To work together.\u00a0 This is what we want\u2026what we need. Freedom. <\/em><\/p>\n The power levels audibly increased.\u00a0 A hum filling the air.\u00a0 One of the functional satellites had come back into range and Alpha Wave was at 100 percent.\u00a0 The cage rose in the air and, as Alan watched wondrously, the white mist within expanded and took the shape of a man.\u00a0 Alan had seen angels in the picturebooks, and this shape was equivalent.\u00a0 His mouth dropped open, and his Figment almost cheered as it urged him to put his hand on the cage, now floating at eye level.<\/p>\n Too awed to think, he did so.\u00a0 Reaching out to grasp the little cage.\u00a0 Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Monica Sears shaking her head back and forth, drooling, making weird, inhuman guttural noises.\u00a0 Then he connected with the cage, and the world changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[253,405],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-serials","tag-figment","tag-serials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1264,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/1264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nThat\u2019s Monica\u2019s term.\u00a0 It\u2019s a vessel.\u00a0 I can\u2019t continue outside of a human host, but this\u2026 Well, this allows me to maintain.<\/em><\/p>\n