Jinn Part 1

...In the beginning there is light. The Great Circle divines the start of
all time and the start of all life, with a single flash of bright
light it calls into being; The Universe. The planets. The stars. All
life as it is known is born in this moment. The seas swell and
spread. The mountains crack and rise. The plains roll out and cover
the Earth in bountiful beauty. Life seeps into all corners and rights
the wrongs of time and decay. Death has no place here. Everything the
light touches warms and sprouts to life. Soon the rains will come and
drench the land in nourishment. Liquid energy flowing through every
vein of the Earth. Cracking and swelling, it opens and breathes new
life into once desolate places. The time of darkness has ended, the
cycle started anew and life, once again, begins to flourish.

Chapter One: Earth 2356 AD

“So children, many of you are approaching your first birthday next week
and that means that your education will be coming to an end. The
academy has taught you all you need to know. The Technist's will be
arriving soon to activate your pre-frontal mechanical cortex.”

The professor walked through the desks of his classroom.
The autumn air thick with energy and gentle shells of dying leaves
fluttering past the sapphire vortex windows. The sun hung low in the
sky and a sense of foreboding gripped the professor tight. He was
reaching retirement and would soon be taken to the chapel for
redemption.

Redemption was a process through which the mechanical
parts of an elderly human were reconstituted into other machinery and
the conscious of the person kept intact inside their processing core
to be used inside the villages Cultural Hub. A collective
consciousness machine designed to distil, coordinate and represent
history through multiple viewpoints to give a better representation
to the younger generations. It was created as a fail-safe against the
possibility of a technological relapse in the future. If the whole of
a society understood and remembered the dangers then it could not
happen again. It was possible to opt out but that meant permanent
banishment from the village. And that was a death sentence.

“Professor Astor?”

A soft voice pierced the haze of the elderly man and he
smiled warmly at the face he knew so well. Samsara was a very gifted
student and a very adept user. She along with only two others had
completely mastered their targeted coordination, extrasensory
abilities and extended range of motion even before having their nerve
synapse enhancers installed. Samsara, Kailar and Horun had been
selected at birth to lead the village due to their extremely
impressive neural link-up with the meta-cortex, each other and their
individual consciousness. They were a formidable team and had become
close friends since starting at The Academy together. Horun
especially had extreme talent. She was capable of amplified thought
from just two months and her movement progressed faster than any
before her. She was a true prodigy and Astor had chosen her to
replace him as Village Conduit. A role that consists of streaming the
data available in the Cultural Hub to all of the minds in the
village. A very demanding role.

“Yes Samsara? Did you not understand the lesson?”

She looked playfully annoyed, but continued.

“No, I was just wondering if you could go over the events pre collapse,
during The Great Replacement and then the first decade post collapse?
My mental notes are a little hazy here and I wanted to refine them
more if you wouldn't mind?”

Astor stood by the electron door, pressed his hands
against the invisible, stable particles and took a deep breath as he
pushed his hand through to feel the cool air against his skin. The
gentle sting of winter to come tinged the warmth of the last summer.
It was going to be a harsh winter.

“Not at all my dear. Where would you like me to start exactly?”

“The beginning of the end. The rise of Almhanza and how humans became so
oblivious to the dangers of machine dependency. At the time it seemed
unimportant to me seeing as their own folly was all down to their
stupidity. Our society is much more advanced. We utilise machinery
for furtherance, not replacement.”

“I see you still have much to learn then. Well, it began...”