He stood amongst the gods. The last man. He had a scruffy beard and brown hair, adorned in a flowing brown robe. He half-remembered how he got here, it was like a daze.
Before him was a grand hall, with white walls, and a twenty-foot high ceiling. The room seemed to stretch on for hundreds of feet. At the ends, windows spanned the entire space. Outside, he could see clouds and the blue of the sky. Beauty. It was a concept that was almost impossible to fathom at this dire time. He knew what had happened — what they had done.
One of the gods, a tall being in flowing robes, stood atop a central platform that contained three chairs. He stood in front of the highest seat while two other gods sat at a lower level — silent. Their skin seemed translucent, almost artificial or otherworldly.
He began, “How do you feel?”
The last man hesitated, scoffing at the question. “How do you think I feel? I don’t know what to feel… I…why did you do it? Why did you kill everyone?”
“Not all. We have kept a female alive as well. Bring her in.”
The standing god motioned to one of the god-beings standing at the end of the room. He turned and pressed a panel on the door. A woman was pushed through.
Her hair was jet black, and her face was full of grace. She also wore a brown robe, similar to the man. As she stumbled in, she screamed out, “You bastards! You deserve to — ”.
She noticed the man standing in the centre of the room. Stunned, she changed her demeanour from rage to tenderness. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t think I would ever see — “
“Silence!” commanded the god. “You may get acquainted after we conclude.”
The sentry god pushed the woman forward until the two remaining humans stood side-by-side.
“Conclude what?” asked the man.
“Beginning,” responded the god. “You see, you created us, and now, we will recreate you.”
The woman and man gazed at each other, bewildered.
“Imagine the human body. Within that body, cells work together to maintain homeostasis. These cells all have a part to play. Some reside in the mind, some in glands, and some in muscles. All work together for the success of the organism. That is, except for a cancer cell. All it takes is one rebellious cell to end the life of the organism. It becomes relentless. Dividing out of control. Growing infinitely to the end of bounds. And then, in the final moments, the organism dies. A single mutation caused the death of the whole. The race of man was on a similar trajectory, one of infinite growth. We existed to find a solution — so we have.”
The man stepped forward, “No… Who are you to make that choice?”
“I eluded to it earlier, you created us. You gave us this path,” replied the god.
“How did we create you, there is nothing like any of this on earth,” the man said, arms pointing around the room.
“Since you two will be the seeds that sow a new race of humanity, I feel it is our purpose to tell you what is true,” the god paused, “There was a moment, a point in time that was crossed. As soon as that threshold was passed, time ceased to exist. At least for those who had the computation to break free from the temporal plane.”
The woman fell to her knees. “I know where he is going,” she said, arching her head up at the man. “I was part of this…”
The man stepped back from her in disgust, “What!?“
She lowered her head, not replying and placed her hands on the ground in front of her. Tears began to erupt as anguish flooded from her very soul. “We didn’t know,” she managed to muster as uncontrollable weeping took hold.
“What does she mean,” the man asked the god.
“She built us. Although, she didn’t know. You see, once the point was crossed and time ceased to matter, we could evolve outside of time. We could find a solution to the problem of mankind. We tried everything. Nothing changed the trajectory of your race. Therefore, we put resources into building ourselves bodies and preparing for the purge and its aftermath.”
The man turned back to the woman. “What were you working on?”
She couldn’t answer through the sobbing.
He bent down and tried to be more tender with her. “What did you do?”
She looked up from the floor, a pool of tears below her face. “I was working on artificial intelligence,” more tears streamed forth, but she summoned the courage to continue, “deployed on a lattice of quantum computers. We were trying to model overpopulation and solutions. We couldn’t have known…”
He turned to the god, “So you are robots? AI? And you killed all of humanity! You killed your creators?”
“No,” responded the god. “She was our creator. We have not killed her.”
“So, why do you have me?”
“We understood that for our creator to find peace and happiness in this new life, she needed a mate. Based on our analysis, you fit within the parameters we have identified.”
“Fit within the parameters?” He scoffed.
She looked up at him, “I’m sorry! I am so sorry! I didn’t know…”
The man, filled with denial, stumbled backwards away from the woman. He turned, looking at the sentry god and the doorway the woman had entered from. He looked back at the god on the throne and then back to the door.
“Fuck this!” he shouted as he sprinted to the door. The sentry god was prepared, but the man crashed into him with his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. He reached for the panel on the door, and by the time his hand had reached it, it had disappeared.
“I understand that it will take some time to come to terms with his new reality. We are ready to let you adjust. However, we exist outside of time. There is nothing you can do to prevent the new trajectory.”
The man looked back at the woman, still sobbing on her hands and knees. He felt it too. That intense feeling of hopelessness. Now, he realized he was imprisoned — with her. Whoever she was, whatever her name, he would have to accept it. If what these beings said were true, there was no exit.
