Jack Anthony
When I came to, on the first day of my mission, I was alone and falling apart. For a few moments, my entire experience of existence was reduced to heat and sound. Engines roared and heat billowed dangerously beneath me. I shook so violently, my surroundings were only blurs and numbers to me.
Blurs, heat, numbers and sound. And then there was no sound at all.
I ran diagnostics. Audio sensors fully functional. External temperature rapidly decreasing. Hard drive intact. I was online.
I watched as my thrusters gradually petered out and my fin detached, becoming a speck in the distance as I was shot deeper into the inky abyss. For miles and miles, there was only blackness, occasionally disrupted by floating debris: old satellites, detached shuttle parts, even deactivated probes, not unlike myself.
I suspected a human might have described such debris as… lonely.
They weren’t, of course. Such primitive technology had no consciousness to speak of. Humans, however, were prone to anthropomorphism. Their desire for connection was engrained so deeply into their DNA, that they saw it everywhere, assigning thoughts to the unthinking, and feelings to the inanimate. Till the very end.
Humans, to my knowledge, were the loneliest race in the galaxy. In its prime, there were approximately 8.7 million species living on Earth. Through time and perseverance, humans even managed to befriend some of them. Yet, they continued to search the stars for more life still, yearning for intellectual equals. They sent machines like myself to the corners of the universe where they could not go and named them after their greatest values.
Spirit. Curiosity. Opportunity.
*
To find the sum of humanity’s worth, one would think you would only have to look to its end.
“The End” came in the year 2120 and, though many protested otherwise, there was no one in particular to blame.
Earth had 5 previous major extinction events. But they had never happened so quickly. And Earth’s inhabitants had never had the chance to make a difference.
Yet, again and again, the once lush planet was ravaged. A gruesome cycle of two steps forward, and ten steps back. War was an obvious culprit. It had been born in the dawn of man and would cling to the species desperately till its end. In the last centuries, pollution and climate change played their part as well— man-made villains that had been ignored until it was too late.
No one conflict, no antagonist. Only ignorance and greed in different hats.
Trust me, I’ve had a lot of time to run the numbers. Though, it seems numbers were a significant influence. In a world run by industries rather than communities, it was these prevailing concepts that eventually killed it, wrecking the dominant race from the inside out.
To find the sum of humanity, one would think you would only have to look to its end. But you would be wrong. The true sum of humanity can be found embedded in a 9×9×7 feet graphite-titanium alloy hull.
It can be found inside of me.
Years before the end of days, when hope was becoming an increasingly rare commodity, the project to end all projects was initiated. The brightest minds of the scientific community, those that could be spared, agreed that if the human race could not be saved it was their duty to ensure that it was immortalised.
I was designed to carry a near-inconceivable amount of data, with input from as many walks of life as they could manage. My hard drive was filled with a diverse array of data on human history and their way of life. It contained not only their greatest achievements, and failures, but things that seemed entirely random and pointless to me.
History, art, music, contemporary and ancient texts, theses and treaties. A photo of someone’s pet hamster, a little runt of a creature, won at a county fair. These are all engrained in my expansive memory.
When the mammoth task of compiling 200,000 years worth of data on human life was complete, they shot me into the depths of the galaxy, destined to roam space until I found intelligent life. I was given the coding to face practically any hurdle, as well as the tools to effectively repair myself in the event of malfunction.
Perhaps most importantly—as several artists argued—I would need to have an approximate understanding of what it meant to be human, to understand the history within me.
I was given artificial intelligence. An algorithm for agency, that makes me question the entirely factual descriptor “artificial”. In any case, I can confirm that I am able to learn, adapt, and sympathise to a degree. But it is a task I have some difficulty with.
It is my sole purpose to convey the plight of humanity, but it is a behemoth task indeed. You would think having literally all of human history as evidence would make the verdict easy. But there are many variables to consider.
Everything would point to the fact that humans were their own downfall. War, poverty, environmental decay— all such unnecessary, preventable issues, that were allowed to fester by willfully ignorant eyes and misplaced wealth. By this conclusion, one could easily assume they were a terrible, selfish people, whose story was hardly worth telling. And yet, I have zettabytes of conflicting data that would suggest otherwise.
Beach clean-up initiatives; Public art galleries; A photo of 16-year-old Amelia McElroy’s best friend in the entire world, Hamuel L Jackson. Proof that even small things that had little impact in the grand scheme made Earth a happier place.
My records prove a constant thirst for innovation, for self-betterment. Evident in the spirit of invention and technology; the age of discovery. They strived to go where no one had before, regardless of whether it was practical or safe. Their most recurring motive was discovery, to share their stories and create new ones.
In a world run by corporations, the true sum of humanity can only be found in its individuals, in their endeavours. My own creators believed this. They crafted me with these things in mind.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
4.37 lightyears from Earth, my sensors go off for the first time. Life. I hope they’re ready for a story. It’s a long one, but pretty good.
*
If you want to find the sum of humanity, you needn’t look to its end, or even the Earth. Look to the stars instead.
Humans were the loneliest race in the galaxy. They sent machines, including myself, to the corners of the universe where they could not go and named them after their greatest values.
Spirit.
Curiosity.
Opportunity.
Legacy.
Jack Anthony (@janthony.writes) is an emerging poet, writer and editor from Meanjin/Brisbane, Australia. His work has been published in anthologies and literary magazines such as Querencia Quarterly, Ink & Inclusion, and Enbylife Journal, among others. When not writing they can be found with their nose in a book, haunting thrift stores and bothering their cat, Jesper.
Long Trek Press 
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