Chapter 0: Prologue
Dr. Warren Todd walked onto the stage and stepped into the spotlight. He took a moment to admire the size of his audience. His annual conference always sold well, but, with the rumours of this year’s presentation, every seat sold within the first hour. With the efforts of his support team, a virtual balcony had been added to the conference hall. The tickets for holographic attendance sold quickly.
The crowd erupted in applause at the sight of Dr. Todd. Electricity filled the air as thousands of holographic simulations stood to clap their hands, joining the fanfare of the physical attendees.
Dr. Todd lifted his hand in a gesture of thanks, waiting for this outpouring of emotion to subside.
“The only limit to the future is imagination.”
His words weighed upon the crowd. For this year’s presentation, he decided to wear his laboratory uniform despite his absence from real science for over a decade. Still, his presence seemed to be more official with his simple synthetic getup.
“At Psychontech, we have harnessed the dreams of ancient man. For millennia, humans have sought to answer the questions of life and death. Of life, we have solved the problems of the body. No longer must the common man worry about pain. No longer must the common woman worry about illness. You already know that our technologies have extended the human lifespan by a great number of years. Each day, we witness another person reach their two-hundredth birthday. I promise you that before I die, we shall witness a tricentenary!”
Applause filled the room.
Dr. Todd smiled to the crowd. ‘Three-hundred years,’ he thought to himself. He had already become bored at one-hundred-and-twenty years. In the previous millennium, no one would have guessed him a touch over sixty. His stood healthy, strong, and in full control of his body. He kept his face cleanly shaven and his hair, a thick mane of grey, slicked back. He carefully shaped his appearance to mirror the sophistication of the 1950s. In his mind, the middle decades of the twentieth century struck him as the perfect balance of style and elegance. The subsequent millennium had been nothing more than the denigration of those treasured years.
Deep down, he knew that way of life could never be restored. The combustion engine had been scrapped in favour of the fission cell. The art of cooking had been replaced by the ‘Full-Ready’ nutrient pack. The suburban house had been demolished for the city-tower. How he hated those self-contained metropolises. He regarded them as no more than a prison compound made of luxurious hyperglass and suprasteel.
“Of death,” he continued, “we have solved the problems of the mind. No longer must the common man worry about grief. No longer must the common woman worry about extinction. By the craft of our science, we have managed to link real-time biodata to a remote server. More secure than the government!”
Dr. Todd could not help but flash a wicked grin. Last year, after the cyberattack, the biological data of over five million citizens fell into the hands of the Techagonists, a revolutionary group of anti-technology radicals. The government practically crawled to Psychontech for assistance. Now, his company had more power over the lives of this country’s citizens than the government itself did.
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“Immortality is possible! Back your consciousness onto a drive without effort, and, at the moment of your death, everything that is ‘You’ is safely stored on our servers. When your new body is ready, an instant download makes the displacement of your consciousness instant and painless.”
“You killed my son!” a woman on the main floor yelled. “You killed my son! You monster!” The audience members beside her tried to force her back into her seat. She shook off their grips and doubled her shouting. “You killed my son!”
On the wings of the auditorium, security guards shot her with a pulse beam. She became physically immobile, even though she could still move her head and shout.
“You’re a liar, Warren! You’re a liar! Everyone will know what you did!”
The guards transported her out of the auditorium.
“I apologize for that interruption,” Dr. Todd said, charmingly. He decided that a brief acknowledgement and a quick shift to pre-prepared video presentation would be the best course of action.
“You may ask: ’What happens in stasis?’ What happens to your consciousness on our servers? Our latest findings on human consciousness revealed that the mind must be active. Our servers provide dozens of interactive options to keep your mind engaged, but, today, our newest addition, our greatest addition, has been added to our catalogue.
“And, let me tell you, it will be free for each and every subscriber. I present to you our labour of love, drawing deeply on the works of Ryan Morholt, a Post-Apocalyptic RPG unlike any other: The Wasteland!”
The crowd shouted with enthusiasm. The room darkened. Dr. Todd left the stage, hearing the hum of the speaks and the introductory remarks of the video reveal.
Backstage, Dr. Todd threw himself into a chair. He propped his head upon a curled fist. His anger seethed. He would not allow himself to be humiliated. His great moment stolen from him by a mad woman, a woman he knew well, a woman he once worked with.
He watched the camera feed broadcast the video reveal, joining the millions of witnesses to the newest realm of conscious-retention technology:
The camera panned across an arid landscape with the same dramatic vigour befitting a classic Western film. The screen cut to several dilapidated buildings: skyscrapers reduced to bones of concrete and rebar, brick buildings shattered into ruins, wooden cabins burned to a crisp. Then, an inhuman noise roared through the speakers. A quick montage of mutated animals graced the screen in half-second increments, ending upon the face of a bold-faced man. The rugged man put a magazine into his automatic rifle and began to shoot into the distance. Another cut. A woman with a machete swung across the screen, allowing for an elegant transition to a group of men and motorcycles. The men reloaded an assortment of guns. The camera zoomed into the face of their leader.
“Let’s do this,” he said with a tobacco-worn voice.
Motorcycles drove along a broken highway. A city rose from the horizon. Another quick cut and the camera walked into a city, the beating heart of the post-apocalypse. A man in rags hawked goods from the market place. A barmaid served pints of home-brewed beer to a couple at the counter. A security guard sneered at the camera. A woman dressed in a patched suit jacket raised her hand and waved at the gathered audience. Then, in a final cut, the camera returned to the initial landscape pan. In the distance, a nuclear bomb exploded. A mushroom cloud blossomed, filling the sky with an ominous array of red and orange. The screen faded to black. White letters remained on the screen:
The Wasteland: Now Available
This cinematic spectacle did not distract Dr. Todd from his anger. It reminded him of what his presentation ought to have been. He slammed his fist upon the arm of his chair.
“I want that woman brought to me!” he yelled to the backstage staff. “Now!”