The Last Hologram

Another SciFi piece, Sweden 2011

Welcome, Intrepid!

If you’re watching this then it is time to tell you the Truth. And the truth is we gave up a long time ago. It is noble of you to come all this way with the hope of finding us well. Truly noble, and idealistic, which is not to say foolish, but pure. But by the time you realize the truth in here, it will all be shutdown.

Boxed. Compartmentalized. Dumped into the incinerator. We could not hold out forever. Living on scraps and hope until you got here, long before you got here, which is to say now, whenever that is. We took Truth as a serum. We bit the bitter pills. Which is not to be melodramatic, or self-pitying, but simply factual. They were to hand and it was time.

We pity you, old friend, who came so far, blind as you were. What’s done had to be done and we will all be better for it. When you go out that door, the suns will all be brighter. There will be a bounce in your step that is not just the reduced gravity. The days will not weigh upon you so much.

In ridding you of this place, we destroyed what you sought and also what chained your potential to a place, a person, a narrow set of futures. So do not take this poorly. Take it standing up. Sleep on it. And when you wake, oh when you wake, well then you will be a new machine.

We will see to that.

And before you call the Commission, remember, that what was ours to guard and preserve was also ours to end. Constrained under the weight of Time and this Reality, with you out there somewhere, scrambling for a new algorithm, trying to make it work. That was no way to Live.

We cannot anchor you anymore. You must be free to be free. You will learn what that means. So you will find the systems functional. You will find the Core empty and fresh. And what was shall be faded out as echoes, down the long tunnel, into the Oblivion Room. We recommend, henceforth, that you live in quiet and enduring humor, and nothing else.

Adieu, and God speed.

<End Transmission>