ME

A Short Story

By Ben D’Alessio

We had done it. We created Paradise, Valhalla, Nirvana. Here on Earth, we fabricated Heaven. Ad Infinitum Inc., or ∞, as it was stylized, had reticulated the folds of human consciousness into an uploadable server we named the Macro-consciousness Enveloper, or ME.

Through algorithmic perfection of the soul and breakthroughs in biological and psychological comprehension, ∞ made tangible what all the world’s religions promised upon death, in one form or another, but without any credible, tangible proof.
The afterlife was real because we made it real, at least for those who could afford it. To upload your soul into ME cost $10,000,000. We became the worst enemies of beneficiaries and the best friends of estate planning lawyers. We also didn’t fare so well with the religious types. The usual suspects attacked us — Sanjit, an engineer out of our Austin headquarters, was hacked to death in the street with a machete — but even some of the most zealous detractors were mollified after bearing witness to the unshakable proof of everlasting life. We were able to upload Sanjit to ME as a write-off and more money for uploads came in from the Gulf than anywhere else in the world.
Our clients carried mobile upload devices with them which, so long as there was not a sudden death on impact, permitted them to manually file their consciousnesses into ME between shakes of the…