Remaking of a World: Chapter 1

Magic of course, does not exist. Even when you read the stories, the lore has just... changed over time. Aliens? I suppose I could see some facts hidden amongst the legends. I could believe that Herakles was some sort of half breed or a genetically engineered being produced from a super race that descended on mankind when we were just discovering that, if you planted crops, you could store them and not starve through the winter. I can envision a man loaded with nanos, coming back in time on a ship, and “falling” from the sky riding a “tail of fire”. The savages looked up, saw a man similar to themselves stepping from the golden craft, carrying a sword that appeared in his hands from nowhere. A sword that could slice through anything they brought to bear, and wearing armor that shrugged off their bows. I could justify why they would hail him as a god on the spot. With the life extension technology, he'd live for maybe a hundred generations, gloriously immortal in their eyes. Magic existed for those people. But what yet is magic, except for the unknown? It has only ever been the substitute for things not yet explained, not yet revealed. It is the emotion generated towards a thought prior to a social awakening. Magic is a totally relative word. It does not exist. Though I suppose that if we took someone from the modern day, they might have had a vague idea of what was going on. However, in all fairness, the technology between the nineteenth and the twentieth century would make it appear as if magic existed there too. I see all of this because it's been something I've thought about long and hard. What if this has happened before? What if time is just a huge circle, and we go through endless loops over and over again? And yet, then, what is time? Does it even exist? People find remnants of ancient and futuristic technology, and all of the sudden, you have legendary figures such as Merlin, King Arthur, Osiris, Achilles, and Thor...

I shifted, uncomfortably, attempting to dispel the somber thoughts from my mind. Absentmindedly, I glanced over the cliff side, gazing deeply into the foaming, white waters below me. How raging and reckless, I thought to myself, much like my own life. Much like the new world. Bast, the beautiful woman sitting next to me, was also watching the waterfall high from the cliff. She, was the one who had found me and brought me into this little enclave. She was short and catlike, fitting her namesake. Petite, I suppose, is the proper word for it. However, unlike her name, she could not hold her tongue. It was rare, in fact, that she ever kept her mouth shut. She often knew what she spoke of, the problem was the amount of time it took for her to get to the point. She had said once before that her true name was Sabine Rossi, but she now went exclusively by Bast. Her skin was a chestnut brown, her mane of hair as black as night. Straight and even white teeth smiled back at me, a small smattering of moles covered one cheek, giving character rather than subtracting from her beauty. She was tiny and looked much like a fairy, with delicate hands and feet. Yet her razor sharp claws that glinted in the sunlight were anything but fairy like, and they served her well as weapons. I had never really understood her or why she had saved me from a Hermood, a guardian force, while I was attempting to, ahem, free resources for use by myself and my following, I had learned though, that she always had her reasons. Always. “Why are were here Bast? I've seen waterfalls before. Many, in fact, and from all over the world. I've seen them in Asgard as well, where Odin himself has warped the laws of physics!” Bast laughed, “ Horus, you are new to this, I know, but patience is something you must have learned in the past hundred years. Honestly. I told you, we are here for you to meet Isis, that she may tell us what to do.” I shook my head, “Do you always go around calling each other by these names? We're human, Bast, we really are. And yes, I know, the sheep out there follow us around and hope that we are going to lead them to... paradise or something. But come on now, what are the chances of us ever coming within a hair's breadth of seeing the world tree, or the forever tree, or whatever you call it? We just aren't going to be able to do it. There are too many followers, and with all of them giving in to the madness, we can't break free. The few we've managed to save are barely surviving as it is!” I stood and began to pace. I really was quite dramatic, I must admit. “If we ever even managed to get through the guardians and into -” Bast lifted her hand, her palm facing outwards, “Stop, Horus. I know all this but, with what you know, we may be able to get something else. Something that may even allow us to come into the gates of Hel, and past Garm.”

I am not a timid man, nor do I scare easily. I am not, however, a hero of any sort. I never have been, I never want to be. For years I had lived out my existence fending for myself, never once breaking stride. I had only ever done enough to sustain my own life, and now these people wanted to tackle a program that had literally been alive since the very beginning. The mighty Odin himself had appointed Garm, the first and only program that had never been hacked, to guard the gates of Hel. Hel, a place that followed the myths of modern day lore, serving as a monumental torture chamber and prison. Not only was it physically located in a bunker with all the standard guards, trip wires, and defenses, but it was also located in the holographic, and just as deadly, if not more, Asgard. On one of its so called levels, a lunatic woman had just suggested that I, me, a lowlife hacker tech-wizard, showman, conman, and any other negative word you can think to throw in there, knew how to get passed him. My voice cracked, rising at least three octaves before I finally brought it back under control with a clearing of my throat. “What do you expect me to do?! Throw it a bone and just saunter on by as if nothing was the matter? Bast, we barely managed to defeat the Hermood and one of Garm's hounds, and you want to actually take on the beast himself!?" Bast, maddeningly, just smiled. “ Horus, really, you're such a drama queen. We will see when we receive Isis's orders.” I was, of course, righteously wrathful and completely ready to wring her scrawny little neck, claws of no, when she looked up, her serene face breaking into a grin. I stopped cold and slowly turned, my hand flicking toward the long blade I wore at my side. “The lady comes.”

I suddenly realized where I was, noticing the illusion all around me. I closed my eyes and relaxed quickly, breathing in two deep breaths and one long one, I forced my mind to tap into the machines that flooded it. I opened them, viewing not only the world, but Asgard as well. I cursed myself for not having seen it before, the signs had been there, but the sculptor of this place had true talent and training from the looks of it. The code flowing around me solidified and, as I completed my turn, the waterfall opened up. From it emerged two of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, followed by a man that walked with a sense of power, his muscles bunching under a tight shirt. My mouth dropped and from behind me Bast murmured, “The Lady Isis, her confidant Hathor and, of all people, Anubis...”

Introduction: Remaking of Worlds

The world of course didn't end as everyone expected it. When do things every happen just as they are foretold. No, the world didn't end 2012, when they Mayans had predicted, Armageddon has not yet happened, nor has Ragnarok happened. We have not starved ourselves for natural resources, set the world ablaze with nuclear fire or released a super bug that destroyed mankind. Life is just not as simple as that. Prophets have proclaimed the end was near.... and I suppose that it always was, tomorrow, or next year, for it will always be tomorrow, and it will always be next year. The future after all is just one second away. No, the information age ushered in instant communication, being on one side of the world with a friend on the other talking face to face. Radical advances in technology had begun to cease, the United States slowly began to withdraw their presence in the space as the almighty dollar gave way to the euro, and soon, that to the yuan. China began its slow, and purposeful in gathering of its people, and though they had the capability to make war, it was much more profitable to control the worlds economy. India and China, the super powers of the world not through might, but through cold hard cash. Soon, they had begun to bail everyone out, making low interest loans, with no real expectation to be payed back, why would they? Still, they lacked one thing, the life blood of a world, no, not magma, oil. They did not have the easy access to oil, and that, that above all things was what caused the end, or maybe the beginning of the end. I don't know, I wasn't around. However from what I've read, this is what it looks like happened. The accounts are vague, and the few old timers left... they don't remember much. However, what is clear is when the world began to bleed.

Again, I am unclear as to the science, or even if the information I have is what even took place. I say again, I don't know, I was not there. From the accounts I read, several oil wells and pipes simply exploded, and began to pump oil into the ocean. Hundreds of millions of gallons, maybe even billions, the automatic shutoff valves failed, all in spectacular fashion, and no one could get a plug that could even slow the flow. It was as if someone had taken a bottle of soda, shaken it up, and took the top off letting it spew everywhere, and oil was difficult to clean, hundreds of thousands of species of fish died, gasoline became completely impossible to purchase, the nations reserves began to dwindle and still the oil pumped, the oceans and water supplies becoming black as blood. It was as if the very angel of God had come to earth, and poured the second vial of His wrath upon mankind, of course, this may have been what happened, no one knows. Every black cloud has its lining, every raincloud its rainbow, and the world as a whole began to pump billions into alternative fuel research, too late though, much too late. The oil magnates began to fund ways to not only clean, but somehow stop the oil from flooding the world, scientists everywhere claimed it would stop soon, it had to stop soon... didn't it? Then, a brilliant young Chinese scientist, named Yang Gu a small time engineer working in concert with a young woman January Bjorn invented not only the programming, but the actual nanomachine that would solve the worlds problem. Through a miracle in engineering, they would actually “eat” the oil, turning it into hydrogen, and using the carbon to build more of themselves, they would eventually gather themselves into floating balls, and die allowing for easy clean up. So ingenious was the design, and the programming, they even were able to seal the ever spewing arteries of the world. Of all the facts I have managed to put together and research I will call that the beginning of the end. This would lead to the nanomachines being used in every sort of chemical clean up, and even, radiation disposal. Soon, mankind had a new dependance, not upon themselves, but upon the machines, for they became indispensable with medicine, construction, engineering and research. This isn't a research paper though, this is the story of how the world ended, and how one day, maybe it would begin again.

The machines didn't mean any harm, they couldn't harm us. They were tools, things to be designed and then discarded as they served their purpose. Not alive, not thinking, a new invention that would lead humanity back into it's golden years. Into a new age, an age of enlightenment. With Nanotechnology, the universe itself was at our fingertips! We lived once again in a pristine world, where pollution was a thing of the past, man was living for hundreds of years. Our world experienced a true revolution, no longer did people starve, no longer did we have epidemics. We had reached near perfection, we, were striving to attain godhood, and that goal was just around the corner. Our fingertips brushed it, we could feel it there, we, once again, as a world, were united. It sounds lovely does it now? Even now as I write this, I can feel the pinpricks of zeal on the back of my neck and feel the hair rise as I know what my people could accomplish. The sheer fascination to see what could be done, for we truly could have accomplished anything. The coalition of the world drew together, choosing to build its building in the exact center of the every country. The skyscraper was huge, seemingly to reach high into the sky, for it was indeed a tower to mankind greatness. There was nothing we could not conquer. Using the tools we had created we had stopped disease, the elements, we controlled everything our hearts desired, and soon our eyes turned to the stars, for that, above all else was our last unexplored and unconquered territory, for, it was after all, ours.

There is a quote, an important one. I believe it goes something like this, “Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.” I don't know who wrote it, I don't really care, I don't even recall where I heard it. A group of radicals did something.... horrible. To this day no one knows how the actually went about it, or even why, but they managed to infect a core nanofactory with a bit of code they called the Global Override Derivative, or... simply GOD for short. They had claimed that it was all part of a global conspiracy, a conspiracy to control man kind. I guess... that's what happened, and they just wanted to be the people that controlled everything. You see, they had found a... loophole in the code. Something that shouldn't have gone overlooked, but it... made the machines... mad. Insane, they began to feed on themselves. You would think, oh, no big deal. We can make more right? Maybe, thats what they bureaucrats thought, even the Techno-Wizards. But... something happened. Something... strange. They didn't.... turn on humans, they didn't even turn on the planet, but... they became, different. They... controlled. Your father wasn't your father anymore, even your family pet... they became something else. Something.. inhuman. Of course, just as with everything, nothing is perfect. It never is, and there were some people the machines couldn't... infect. A genetic flaw that would not allow the true coupling of machine and man, and not all of the nano's were susceptible to the coding, different languages, don't you see, about... 1 in every million or so remained... unique.

I suppose I have... foreshadowed enough... Or... is it postshadowed? I don't know. I, like my friends, were one of these.... lucky or unlucky, whichever. I, am one of the ones that wants to put things back to how they were. So I can look my father and mother in the eye and know, that it's them I am talking to, not a machine. Where once again, mankind was, man again.