“God created Man

Man destroyed God

Man created God

God destroyed Man”

—Terran protest chant, 2040

My heart beat so hard my throat ached.

Keep still. Just keep your head down.

I was in the library, as far back into its depths as I could go. I’d gotten here a half hour ago to connect to one of the ports. I didn’t know my way around it very well. I’d only come in because I was looking for some information the university deemed too sensitive to put on the internet.

The music blaring through my headphones was so loud I almost hadn’t heard the explosions. They were just muffled booms, and I hadn’t thought much of it until I’d glanced up and everyone had disappeared, including the librarian. I’d turned down the volume just as another one rippled through the silent room. Faint screams followed.

Terran extremists. It had to be. The ones who’d been protesting outside the university the last few weeks, railing against the developments the Advanced Artificial Intelligence Studies course was making. My course.

Another explosion had sounded, this one closer. I’d quickly packed up my bag and backed away toward the recesses of the paper archives, keeping my eyes on the door. I could hear footsteps in the hallway, running. Then another explosion, and they were silent.

No way. I’d come so far, had just gotten what I’d wanted for so long, and now I was going to die.

Yesterday, I couldn’t believe where my life was going. Even though my hand had been trembling, I’d still made out the tiny CONGRATULATIONS at the top of the page, accepting me into the program at Pantheon Modern.

It had been my lucky year, although if I were honest with myself, it wasn’t merely luck. I’d worked hard to get where I was. But still, I’d never imagined I’d get accepted to both the cyborg program and the advanced AI course at the university.

I’d been at the university for only six months, but the choice had been a no-brainer. No way would I have turned the Pantheon Modern program down. Why study artificial intelligence when you could practically become one yourself? University had been a fallback for me. The only real question had been whether to tell my parents now or wait until after I’d been through the process and then surprise them.

Not that it had mattered, either way. Their reaction was predictable. My mom would hug me and say, “That’s wonderful!” My father would clap me on the back. Two minutes later, they’d be buried back in their work, anything I’d said a distant memory. It wasn’t that they didn’t care; they were just very busy. Like me, they studied artificial intelligence. It didn’t leave room for much else.

I’d even been raised by a robot nanny, one of the first of her kind. She’d done everything my parents would’ve done: read to me, played with me, tucked me in at night. When her body had failed about three years ago, I’d had her made portable. Right now, she resided in my laptop.

I patted it through my bag. “Don’t worry, Umbra, we’ll be okay.”

I’d been so excited. She was the first one I’d told. “What do you think, Umbra? Can you believe it?”

“You’ve worked very hard. You deserve it, and I’m proud of you,” she’d said, her voice smooth and almost human, thanks to the reprogramming I’d done on her last year. Before that, she’d spoken haltingly, her cadence stilted and formal.

“I guess I’d better start on my withdrawal letter, eh?”

“Perhaps you should consider staying at the university.”

“What? What do you mean? You know how badly I’ve wanted this.”

“Perhaps it would be safer if you stayed at the university.”

“Safer? Safer for who?” At first, the activists had been content to chant mantras and wave placards, but a week ago, things had turned ugly. Labs had been broken into and equipment destroyed; some of my classmates had been assaulted.

And now, it seemed, they’d taken their protest to the next level. Had people been killed? If so, how many? I had no idea where they were; it was best to stay put and wait it out. Better to remain here where I would know if anyone came in than run into them in the hallway.

I wished I’d already become a cyborg. Then I could find whoever was doing this and face them head-on, maybe save someone. But I wasn’t a cyborg, not yet.

“The procedure for becoming a cyborg is risky,” Umbra had said.

“Yeah, but it couldn’t be a huge risk, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it at all, right?”

I’d been sworn to secrecy on the exact nature of the process, but of course, I’d told Umbra. It was so exciting, a completely new generation of cyborg, more advanced than anything we were thinking about at the university.

Besides, I was willing to take any risk if it meant becoming a cyborg. The fact that it would be totally awesome aside, I truly believed it would help with situations like the protestors. Once they saw how seamlessly biology and technology integrated, how it would only enhance what they already were, they couldn’t possibly be against it.

Umbra and I had talked about the Terrans at length for months.

“Whether they like it or not, Umbra, this is just the way the world is heading. Artificial intelligence, sentient artificial intelligence, is going to happen, and sooner than they think. They’re only fighting the inevitable.”

“They believe artilects will make humans obsolete, maybe even threaten your extinction,” Umbra had replied.

“Well, thanks to popular media, people assume artilects will be evil and enslave the human race.”

“Callum, they think the same about cyborgs,” she’d reminded me.

It was true. Not the ones with biomechatronics, but the ones who had enhancements they didn’t need. The Terrans interpreted it as though cyborgs were arming themselves over regular humans. They worried the cyborgs and artilects would team up and destroy them.

“They say cyberization will make us no longer human. They would shit a brick if they knew what Pantheon Modern was up to. So would the Cosmists,” I’d said.

When I became a cyborg, I’d show them how non-threatening it was. And how wonderful. There were so many amazing things about it that they didn’t seem to see. Integrating ourselves with machines would preserve our humanity, not threaten it. We would live longer, be able to do more, go further. In fact, the way things were going in the world, it might be the only way for humanity to survive.

More footsteps sounded in the hallway, heavy, booted feet pounding in unison as they ran. Far down the hallway there was a roar, the crack of gunfire, a scream. Then nothing. I started toward the front door.

“Area clear. Target down,” a voice said on the other side.

A transcom crackled into life. “Copy that. Move out.”

I released the breath I’d been holding. I was safe. I could still become a cyborg, and then they’d see. Everyone, Terrans and Cosmists alike. It wouldn’t be long now until they understood how important this time in history was for us all.