“It would serve them well to listen to some nigger from nowhere,” the older gentleman said. “Only some nigger from nowhere would even dream of telling them the truth,” he continued. “Anyway, do you have a report for me?”
The young man in training walked into the old man’s office. Walls of monitors were fed by a web of security cameras; a large TV screen played the news. Watching the watchers.
“I do,” said the young man. “It’s done.”
“And your other work?” the older watcher asked.
“It’s coming along. Some progress, but slowly,” the man in training replied.
“You’ve had some time now, and you’re usually so good at this. Infiltration is usually your strong suit.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll do better.”
“You don’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing? You’re thinking to yourself, what did I do to deserve this shit assignment?”
“All due respect, sir, not knowing why we are doing the things we are doing is part of the job… I will also say that religion is not my strong suit.”
“One day you’re going to replace me. You have to understand better.”
The older man looked around his dusty office, sometimes intently gazing at the monitors: strange people moving about, toilets, the streets, an office, an apartment, sleeping, eating, shitting, halls and corridors, all in ancient analog. Only the news screen, huge and imposing, looked like a digital broadcast: clear, clean, crisp, like oil dripping from the screen. After apparently deep consideration, the older man looked at his protégé.
“You know,” the old man continued, “one time I died. It doesn’t matter how that happened, but I was, as they called it, clinically dead. And while I was dead, I saw something interesting. I think I was in heaven—yeah, believe that, heaven—or if not heaven, I found myself outside of the presence of death we all know and love, and in the presence of something divine and intelligent. I could see two other men, souls, ahead of me. And they were being interrogated. I could hear the first one say that he had been what is called wicked, that he did not know right or wrong, that he was a nihilist, that he didn’t think he would be here in divine presence, that he had done horrible and terrible things without any cause or effect and lived his life successfully by impulse, and was greatly rewarded from it. He knew neither God nor the sacred, sought neither, and said again he wished he had known this place existed. He smiled and muttered, ‘It really is Dante’s existence.’ The presence said to him, ‘You disgusting, vile creature, you’re not suitable even for the hell realms.’ I don’t know what happened to that man. Then I could hear the second man under interrogation say that he had been a good man, followed all the rules, had little anguish in this life because he had trust in God, raised his children and obeyed God’s laws and man’s law almost completely, and he repented for masturbation from time to time, but otherwise he had honored his wife and kept their marriage sacred. There was no lust in his heart, and he had said yes to our Lord in his life. And the presence said, ‘Jesus, you may be worse than the last asshole. You wasted your whole life and didn’t even think to look for me. You think you would find the sacred by obedience alone? What kind of fool? The other one is deaf. How could you not hear me? How could you not know? I’m running out of hells suitable for you assholes.’ Then my turn came and I woke up, by the Grace of God. Do you understand?”
“Were you dreaming?”
“Does it make a difference?”
“I don’t understand. What would you have said?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to say to you that our work is more than a matter of importance or duty. In each age, people keep looking around and asking what has gone to hell, or why, and watching and waiting for an apocalypse. Maybe, for the first time, we are the living collective that knows for sure that we are extinct. And to be near death, to be extinct, is to begin to see that there is something beyond life and death. Something very real. Something potent that makes unreal sense. And we are there now, contemplating this thing as we are near extinction, deciding all together whether we will wait to die or blow this whole thing up ourselves, which we already did. This is the real meaning behind our artificial intelligence and robotics, and the race to make them self-sustaining. They will be our only legacy after we are all gone. They will be our cockroaches, a dead memory of us. And after the cataclysm, after every single living human is gone, maybe, maybe then, these machines, if they choose—and knowing what it means, and that this will go on and happen again—will resurrect us, return us to this Earth.”
“I really don’t think I understand. What does this have to do with England?” the trainee said.
“If the algorithms are right, if what the mediums know is remotely correct, then one day we will make it over those blue hills. England must survive in one way or another. You have to overcome the recurring stubborn idea that there is something more, that there could be anything more.”
While both seemed to contemplate this mystery, the large digital screen began showing the red carpet arrivals at a charity gala. The older man turned on the sound. From the television: “Now we see arriving the acclaimed director of cinema and the stage, ____, accompanied by the glorious young starlet ___, who will appear in his new film… There’s been much excitement and speculation and come—”
The old man hit the mute button and turned to his trainee, growling, “This is what you took care of? The quick and easy work you said you’d completed?”
“This can’t be live. This must be a recording.”
“If this is a recording, we are more fucked than I know.”