The Pioneers

A room comes into focus, its visage blued by the projector overhead. Its domed ceiling reaches an impossible height, adorned with glinting filigree. A laptop hums to life and a swirling screensaver filters its radiant glow over throngs of people. Faces touched gently by fingers of light, before they turn away, plunging their features into shadows. A cerulean eye holds her gaze as he enters the auditorium. She watched the light as it cast itself in long bars against his figure before swirling away to capture its next inspiration.

Her watch chirped. 3 Pm. Lint played between her fingers as she fidgeted deep in her pockets. Her hands clammy, bleached by the cold. Winter had come quickly, burrowing into the subway tunnels and arresting lungs on the street. Grey skies threatened smog-filled flakes only to be buffered along on the winds. Suddenly she was acutely aware of her scarf wrapped around her neck. Threatening to suffocate her then and there, although it laid limp and was fiber she could feel its grasp tightening. The unevenness of her clothing, layered, and damp with winter sweat. Her leggings had fallen around her hips during the brisk walk from the train leaving her sloppy, uncomfortable. Her sock was pushed down by her boots, leaving her heel bare and scrunched uncomfortably under the arch of her foot. The fabrics, in an active uprising against her frame. She adjusts her waistband and removes the traitorous scarf along with her hat. A cascade of static threw her fine hair into her face. AHHHH she wanted to scream, every sensation had multiplied to an almost unbearable level of loud. Circuits shorted from physical stimulation.

The chatter of curiosity filled the room as more attendees arrived. The smell of salt and bodies ensnared nostrils, rubber, and Goretex squeaked along the linoleum aisles. What was to be unveiled to the populace? So eager to dream of the future, desperate to escape modernity’s shortcomings. A reckoning is upon us. Embodied within her. Heart glowing coldly, a dimand faint flutter encased in a cold concrete cast. Some say the spirit is encased within the flesh, others believe it wraps itself around our earthly totems. Hers burst from seams stitched millennia before.

She sunk into the hard wooden auditorium chair. Here she was stuck. Frozen in time a gargoyle displaced from its post. The overhead lights flash and dim, signaling that all assembled would finally be rewarded. Droplets of dreams condensed into a presentation. The audience shifts uncomfortably and a hush rolls over the crowd. On the stage, a man emerges from behind a blue velvet drape. He walked with an uneven gait, shuffling and dragging his right foot slightly. His charcoal pants hung loose on his slender frame buttons unevenly matched on his white collared shirt.

“Hey is this thing on?” he mouths soundlessly into the microphone. Tap Tap Tap, deadened silence. The man gestures towards the hooded figures at the sound booth, arms thrown up in exasperation and disgust. After a few moments of confusion, his voice booms through the speakers.

“HELLO Everyone! Thank you for coming today. Sorry for the technical difficulties, but let’s not forget why we are here! We have all come together in this room to witness a true marvel” His voice continued. “We are so excited to show you what decades of hard work has achieved. We built this on the backs of all that have come before. Let me introduce our founder John. Again thank you for joining us for this revolutionary moment. Please give John, our very own North Star in the dark, a warm welcome.”

Applause erupts around her and the man exits stage left. She shivered and squirmed in her seat. Something about him had made her uneasy. The lights lower and a spotlight appears, the man presumably John steps out from the center of the curtains showered in halogen halos. His hulking frame was awkwardly large against the frame of light. A stark contrast to his all-black attire. He nods, the audience falls silent once again, and he begins.

“Let us go back to the beginning, to where it all began. The Origin” The spotlight cuts off and darkness covers all. The projector whirs to life, as embryonic pulses of sound surround her.

“In the beginning… we were stardust.” a disembodied voice fills the room “Every fiber of your being, every particle of which you are composed, was born in a supernova at both, the beginning and end of time. We know time is not a linear experience, yet here we are waiting. Waiting for a change in circumstance, a change in understanding, waiting for clarity, evolution, waiting for our lives to start, for some unknown omnipotent force to rip us from the sidelines. But what if you didn't have to wait?”

The pulses grew louder against the tiny timpani drums in her ears as the screen transitioned from luminous photos of outer space to interstellar objects flying at the audience at hyper speed. Abruptly the music stops and a logo fades into the screen.

“Stellar Circuit, Accelerate your Stardust” the phantom voice echoes over the crowd. The crowd was at full attention, murmurs of excitement rippling through them. The lights dimly splash the stage bathing John in angelic light once more. John grabbed the mic, a man possessed, moved intensly by his creation, a manic energy had overtaken him.

“We’re interfering with evolution, a leap forward for humanity itself!”

His voice jilted and skipped, like a little boy explaining to his mother why he just had to put frogs in his pocket, starting midway through the thought. His eyes were wildly large, pupils dilated to their extremes, cheeks flushed. He had seen The Origin and he had to tell everyone about it.

“Let me ask you all a question” he continued “What if you had the ability to actualize all of your future self today? What if you could bypass all of the horrible and boring parts of your life? Waiting for emotional growth, waiting for healing? What a waste.” Healing rolled off his tongue with disgust.

“Well, folks, you can, with Stellar Circuit, the very first ever omniwearable device that fast tracks your personal development by tuning your brainwaves with the rhythms of the eternal cosmos.” Beads of sweat had crested on John’s pasty forehead illuminated by the omniwearable device hanging in pixel suspense on the screen behind him. Channeling some inhuman force He pushed forward, the syncopated rhythm hitching his speech.

“With Stellar Circuit I have created a groundbreaking fusion of neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and wearable tech. I welcome you to envision what a world can look like with Stellar Circuit. I know most of you are sitting alone, peering into your respective screens” The audience chuckles, accused and guilty.

“You wait! That’s all you know how to do, it will get better, someday, you say to yourself, while that little shadow of doubt scurries across your mind. A rat!” he screeched.

“You start to spiral, scared, and instead of preparing a sedative for yourself you simply put on the Stellar Circuit. Suddenly, you have arrived.” John paused lingering on the word arrived.

“You are transported, confidence courses in your veins, empathy for all and one exists, and clarity shines through your universal lens.

“You return to your present timeline with all of that experience integrated into who you are today. No waiting. No years of trial and error. Just the future, now.”

The projector wheels a stylized sequence of a user installing the Stellar Circuit, and being whisked away. The imagery is breathtaking and everyone in the audience gasps. Sonombulist-drenched daydreams spinning in 4k.

“How do we do it? 3 functions! Technologies I have developed, patented, and integrated into Stellar Circuit. So let’s talk about them!” John clapped his hands together like a revivalist, his hips swaying as he skittered from foot to foot.

“1!” He shouts, holding his pointer finger in full extension to the heavens.

“ Neural Sync, 2!” A second finger joins the first straining into the widest V possible.

“Cosmic Ai, and last but not least 3!” His ring finger, an exclamation point in the flesh.

“Timeline Intertia. Timeline inertia is very special folks let me tell you, but let us start at 1 the Neural Sync. The Stellar Circuit reads your specific brain waves and tunes them by physically stimulating the different vibrations into your organic matter. This input is determined by Cosmic AI. Using quantum algorithms, Stellar Circuit maps the particle vibrations emitted by celestial bodies. your brainwaves align with those vibrations from which we are created. It’s all matter….tomahhtter……” John trailed off a confused look settled over his face.

“Why the planets? And the, and the rhythms of our lives……. ”

It was as if he had been turned on and off again momentarily, a red button to abort the mission. She looked around. Had anyone else noticed? The crowd’s faces were placid moons in the reflections of the stage, not one person seemingly aware of the oddity playing out before them.

“Oh right!” John’s original vigor returned in a flash.

“Timeline inertia. In just minutes, you can mentally process years of life lessons, gaining clarity, resilience, and wisdom without waiting for time to pass.” The veins on his neck bulged unnaturally. The sweat that had started on his forehead had now completely drenched him. She was pretty sure droplets were puddling on the floor beneath him.

The man with charcoal pants suddenly appeared from between the velvet drapes. John stared at him in shock. He took one of his massive hands and covered the microphone, wordlessly mouthing to the man. A look of concern furrowed John’s heavy brow. He paused, turning to look at the sea of people waiting with bated breath. Slowly he extends his hand holding the mic towards the man. The man grasps it, almost wrestling it out of John’s hand. John held up 3 fingers as if in defiance and strode off stage.

The lights abruptly go black.

“In the beginning we were stardust.” The disembodied voice said to her.

She closed her eyes tightly against the darkness pressing into her iris.

“Conceived only by the electrical impulses fed carefully into our nervous systems. Wiring. Governed by survival. We compete for scarce resources, empathy undeveloped in the human mind. Waiting for your life to start Waiting for your life to start Waiting for your life to start. 3.

She opened her eyes. The auditorium was empty. Not a trace of the pioneers or their audience remained. The overhead lights glared down on the crown of her head. She must have fallen asleep, she thought to herself, but she couldn't shake the uncanny feeling that possessed her. John seemed unreal, a visage from a dream. Her watch read 3 pm. Fuck she hadn't taken any notes for the investment team. She scowled to herself, gathering her things to meet the bracing cold outside.

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -The Subway — — — — — — — — — — — — —

She hurried down the damp humid stairs. Musky with steel and grime the air enclosed her welcoming her to the underground. The city below, complete with tenants. Those far-away abandoned tunnels, home to the desperate. Slipping themselves into a hole in the curb, descending into darkness, the mole people. They would exist in the in-between. A reality somewhere in the twilight between wake and rest.

When she was a child she would cup her hands around her eyes pressing her pinkies to the glass to create a darkened tunnel. Having removed the reflection of the interior of the car she would peek into the twisted oasis. Signs, lights, and graffiti tags rushed by her eyes. Gaping dark corridors beckoned an exploratory imagination. What deep secrets did the city hold? A place away from the humanity within the car. She looked down the platform, her eyes catching long strangers' gazes. As she looks down the tunnel she catches the stare of a blue-eyed man. The familiar rumble in the distance grew louder as the train emerged from the tunnel, headlights only behind the sound and wind.

Mindless stories twisted their way, tunneled through her cortex. Devouring slime-covered organs from the inside out. The algorithms are predictive, at what point is it no longer an original thought? Where is the seed planted? Was it created by the consciousness, the organic neural net or was the thought provoked, stoked by the suggestion? The digital airwaves infested with platforms. Each chain of TOS and COG, creating pockets of subterfuge and rebellion. Pure unadulterated channels of humans. Machines learning in hyperspeed, consuming binary fodder. Here emotions are boiled down to their chemical bases, flowing in perfect order into numerical strings.

If only we could visualize the behaviour patterns she thinks to herself. Closing her eyes she can build it in her mind. An expansive chart filters to fill her view. Color-coded and built to show engagement, categories, and emotions evoked from each piece of content consumed weekly. A bar chart crossed with a Venn diagram. Coded out like DNA results, endlessly comparable against others. Brilliant designs stuck in the ether.

How many beautiful brains have been robbed of their most precious asset? Time. How many brilliant boys turned into directionless wayward waifs? Wailing at the moon lost behind gloomy skies. How many hearts deceived? Tactics shared, hopes dashed, depression ingrained, connection lost?

Your connection is unstable. Unstable network. Unstable footing on the earth. “3rd places!” the periodicals shout. “We’ve lost them! That’s what is wrong!”. They themselves, trapped in the transmutation of the digital age.