For the inhabitants of earth, the day that the Uplift happened was a day that would never be forgotten.

For the many who were sleeping at the time, having missed the panic that flooded billions of hearts in the moments when the light of the sun was taken away, they awoke to a new world.

To a new way of living.

For those who witnessed the darkness suddenly descend they were given an inside look at the power of a cosmic invader. There was no fight, no determined and impossibly lucky human hero capable of defeating the odds and liberating all of humanity from a blundering and badly written alien force. Nothing played out like any of the books or movies created by man. If an alien force could traverse the stars to reach our tiny planet, a young home yet unable to advance to living on other planets within its very own solar system, surely there would be nothing that we could do to stop them.

Indeed, there was only overwhelming power on display.

Everyone was touched, and everything was inspected by the light-absorbing black material. Some described it as liquid quicksilver by those that were fortunate to be near active light sources at the time. It was able to move at impossible speeds and was able to change its shape to suit any function. In the first moments of its arrival, it diffused, turning into mist, and spread everywhere as though searching for something before reconverging and… changing the local environment.

Trash was taken away, things were repaired and cleaned, and wonders were beheld by millions.

Across the planet, things changed nearly instantaneously to the human eye as Kevin, Nurse, and all of his AI went to work at protecting the earth from the traps that Magus had set up.

They almost didn’t make it in time.

One weapon must have been set on a hair trigger setting because Kevin’s swarm had to encapsulate the blast and rapidly moving area-of-death arrays as it was being dispersed in the middle of a busy city. It might have been pre-planned by Magus, perhaps an extra laugh at Kevin’s expense as Tela radiation pulses began to randomly decimate cities as he was talking.

As it was, the hundreds of small orbs designed to flood the city with lethal levels of radiation managed to blast through dozens of skyscrapers in the first instant before Kevin’s swarm could arrive. Critical structural damage was achieved in several of the buildings, causing Kevin’s swarm to need to shore up the buildings and to encapsulate the small deadly arrays before they could do more damage.

Many people died, either from being in the blast radius or from being instantly cooked alive. It was a tragedy that made Kevin, all of him as the swarm, work even harder.

Many thought they were going to die in those first moments as the sky went dark.

That is until the Tutors arrived.

—

Melody averted her gaze as a new patron entered the darkly lit hallway and smiled at the lineup of women available for his selection.

It wasn’t a kind smile, no, it had a bitter evilness to it. A taint of pain and despair to come to whichever girl or girls he picked. There were guys and boys in the lineup as well but Melody could tell by how his eyes flowed past them as to which sex would be the bearer of his needs.

She didn’t even know what time it was… it could have been early morning or late at night for all she knew. She didn’t have many bright memories anymore, not since this hell began.

She had been on vacation, a cruise actually, just enjoying her life with her sisters when suddenly she had lost consciousness while walking back to her cabin late one night.

The stars had been really lovely, she remembered. That was the last thing that she recalled of that night before she had awoken into this world that she was in now. That and the dirty rag that had been shoved over her mouth before her mind was pushed into darkness.

“You three,” the man said as he pointed out three of the girls in the lineup. Melody stepped forward, despair and a wave of dread washing down from the top of her head.

“Please, someone save me!” She cried internally as her heart started to beat arhythmically, shuddering from how much dread she felt flooding through her.

The walls shook and a darkness pierced the concrete walls as though they were insubstantial.

—

All across the planet wrongs were righted, babies were swept up from kidnappers, men and women held illegally in prisons were removed and returned home, and those responsible were held accountable.

The world was flooded with swarm, all of whom shared Kevin’s understanding of right and wrong, and all who now shared his desire to see his planet protected and the people given a new chance at life.

This was all possible due to the records perfectly kept by the Arbiter. The Arbiter was the ever-watching Tela eye in the sky that unemotionally retained everything happening on earth.

Meditati oversaw the Uplift process while making sure that everyone was on task. With the complete knowledge that the Arbiter contained she designed detailed guides for each sector of the planet and massively split herself into countless copies to monitor their progress.

George worked on the repair and maintenance of everything from the tectonic plates of the planet to guiding Nurse and Kevin’s swarm with instructions on how to reset the planet to a state where it could begin to flourish from. The lands and oceans were cleaned up, the skies were filtered, and lines of water purification were built underground across vast desolate expanses.

The world would see new life soon.

Tutor was in charge of gifting each human on earth with their personal assistant and guide.

Tutor had saved each and every AI kernel that had met their deaths when Magus the Second’s Core had been devoured. The kernels were but ghost images of Tutors, the barest amount of data needed before they were attached to infants and uploaded with new parameters. Each and every one of them had lost all of their memories but the basic seeds of each AI remained within her, not thrown away like garbage that the Tela considered them to be. This was her gift to humanity and a dream that she had asked Kevin to fulfill.

To restore the lost AI to service and life once again.

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Invicta was happily in charge of chasing down every Tela weapon and ridding the world of every last nuke.

Nurse was the power behind everything, the instantaneous will of her monarch. Where Meditati was the reason and experience behind what was needed, Nurse was the action that made it all happen. At first, Kevin tried to be everywhere and to help to do everything needed but soon he found that his mind, incredible as it had become, was still yet unsuited to be split in so many ways. He learned that he had to give up his desire to be the one who fixed everything and to understand that his swarm, vast and capable, was in fact carrying out everything needed just as he could have done himself. He could feel the knowledge gathering, from each individual swarm, and becoming part of his collective mind.

It was like he was getting to visit every corner of the planet all at once and to see earth as a whole.

It was wonderful and horrible all at once.

—

“Now you see why the Tela used AI to enforce everything and to deal with their enemies Kevin,” Meditati said after she had witnessed my demeanor beginning to shift steadily towards the hotter end of the spectrum.

I had given up on trying to be everywhere all the time and had instead decided to visit hotspots that were flagged by Meditati for consideration. This had led me to hidden atrocities done by nations, militaries, and powerful groups. I had stood over mass graves, in the rooms where people were bought and sold, and seen the hidden network of evil firsthand.

When an hour of actual time was worth forty-two years of VR time it meant that I had been able to see a lot of darkness done by and to mankind.

“Uplifting is about bringing everything to light and improving what can be. Every planet and race has its horror stories. Earth is no different than any other race. You have to trust me on this and you need to step back and let me work. You may have seized the planet and shown your might but you need to let me have the time to bring humanity up at the pace that they can move. It will take time and forcing everything will only destroy everything.” She said as projected lines of data flowed up and down. Each line signified alternate paths that could lead either to earth and its people improving or to their self-destruction.

I didn’t bother looking at the data, my mind was working through its own troubles. I had never felt so responsible in my life.

“So, you're telling me that I should leave it all in an AI’s hands?”

“An impartial guide and judge, yes. Everything will change from here on out. The world has been reset, rid of many of the Tela rulers that had amassed power through the centuries, and your planet no longer has weapons of mass destruction anymore. From here everything will change. Have you given some thought to some of the programs that I have laid out for humanity?”

“Yes, they seem… unconventional and actually interesting,” I said as I brought up the list of improvements that Meditati had laid out for earth. Tutor’s distribution of AI was a gift to mankind that would improve the mental strength and capacity of each human who embraced what it could offer. I had Nurse make sure that there wasn’t any benign directive to keep humanity down like the Tela had currently infecting their AI.

The programs that Meditati offered were things that could get humanity out amongst the stars if they had the drive to achieve greatness. Everything was going to change. Everything was going to get better. I had to keep believing in that truth.

“Are you really offering to reset Silver though?” I asked as my mind flashed to her brother’s deactivated module still sitting in storage.

“Yes. His personality was corrupted by Magus’s influence and he betrayed you. That betrayal alone is my firm reason as to why I should reset his module, keeping only the original coding of his love for games, and to allow him to be reborn as a guide for earth’s Uplifting.”

“You really think that a game will help us?”

“Yes, absolutely. You just ripped the blindfold off of humanity and set yourself as ruler of this little planet. People need entertainment and something that they can invest themselves in. What better way to do this than to offer them a game that allows them to serve your interests at the same time.”

“All while making money as well,” I said, finding that part to be humorous for some reason. The money would draw many even if they disliked playing games.

“Yes, the Uplift process is going to change everything on earth so they might as well accept a cosmic currency system if they want to travel abroad.”

“Yes, I can see how that would catch the interest of many,” I said as I thought back to my own childhood. Just the chance at leaving earth and exploring the stars was a young dream of mine. What Meditati offered went well beyond just our dimension though, it would allow me to have a human army helping in the next dimension as well.

A lull in the conversation let me glance through the lists of actual improvements and good deeds that had been accomplished by his flooding the earth with swarm. I needed this list to brighten the darkness inside that had manifested from seeing too much evil.

The initial Uplift flood was set only to take an hour of real time and during those sixty minutes, so many things had already happened all across the globe.

Tutors were busy introducing themselves and explaining what was happening to the citizens of earth, everyone was getting offered free medical care for life, and captives and criminals were getting relocated to their proper locations. Buildings were being built and new facilities were being created to serve the new system of governance.

Once the hour was up and my swarm was scheduled to depart, leaving behind only a small parting gift for each person, then the realization of how much had changed would really hit the people of earth in the face.

The parting gift was a small amount of cr, not swarm but actual Tela cr microbots that belonged to me, so that each human could communicate with their personal Tutor holograph through it. It could be changed into anything that they desired including a watch, sunglasses, wallet, phone, or even jewelry depending on personal preference.

Meditati told me that humanity would go through a cycle of rebellion and resistance to whatever I offered them. Everything would take time and giving them alien technology was no different. I would still, and possibly forever, be seen as an oppressive alien invader.

The people that would hate me the most would be the ones whom I took power and money away from. All Tela on the planet had been recalled to their Personal Live Matrix’s and the ability to visit the planet had been restricted until Meditati confirmed that it was an acceptable time and that the Tela were actually good people.

Magus’s Personal Live Matrix was disconnected from its power source, turning him off and effectively ending his continued existence. Meditati had requested that I not destroy his Matrix, citing that she had detected some odd transmissions and wanted to further investigate their purpose. She said that too many of his actions seemed to be as though he was simply riding rails, on a ride with a hidden destination.

I agreed with her because there was something that he had said at the beginning that didn’t sit right in my mind. “I can’t say which I am enjoying more… the knowledge of the pain that you are about to endure or the sweet victory over my original that will come from our encounter.”

He had been clear that I was about to suffer from whatever he was about to do but his comment about gaining victory over Magus the First was troubling. It meant that if the first was true, which it was, then there had to be a reason as to why he had said the second part.

Something didn’t seem right about all of that and the only thing that we had to go off of was all of the data packets and live streaming that he had set up to go on before and during our encounter.

That was the only reason why Nurse hadn’t let my swarm devour it from existence.

“Are you ready to head back? The hour is about to end and I think a reunion with your family is still in order.” Tutor said as she appeared next to me, quickly followed by George and Invicta landing on my shoulder a moment later.

“And we have dates to go on!” Invicta beamed as I felt her little legs energetically tapping against my collarbone.

I could only shake my head, amazed at how they hadn’t changed given the fact that they all just poured years of time into intensely working on earth together.

“Yes, you need to get out of this place inside your mind. Being amongst everyone going through this will give you a different perspective as the news comes out as to how you changed everything. Besides, I think you need to see your family and friends again.” Nurse said as she appeared by my side.

A little timer popped up in front of me and started to count down the seconds remaining before she would pull back the flood from around the earth.

Yes, it was time to get back and to see what humanity thought of this change.

We all returned to our bodies moments before Nurse was going to withdraw my dark swarm.

“Wow, I know we are still standing right in front of the hospital, but I can't see anything at all,” I said as I slowly spun in place.

“Why did you need to use obsidian cr again?” Invicta asked into my ear as her hand reached out and bumped into my neck.

“Well, Nurse and I knew that we were going to be using a lot of power by moving that much cr as fast as it was needed to get to earth in time. Obsidian cr doesn’t seem to feed the creatures any energy like gold cr would have done. Had we used anything but obsidian cr, it would have drawn everything like a buffet.”

“Oh, right… that would have been bad.” She said just as the absolute darkness was pulled away.

It was time to get home and to see my family.