Ethan woke as he did everyday, with Dually’s comforting voice murmuring inside his head. The faint murmur sparked that moment between sleep and waking when awareness and reality have yet to meet. Ethan was always coming out of little dreams at that time. Not dreams really. More like he was coming back from somewhere and bringing back little packets of information he could use in life. If he could only remember them. Sometimes he’d see symbols or numbers. Other times it was like he was trying to retain a great mystery he found during sleep. He never remembered any of it two minutes after he woke, but he found the moments reassuring while he was experiencing them.

Once awake, Ethan stayed in bed awhile longer, yawning and stretching. There was no hurry. He always allowed himself the luxury of lazing around when he woke.

Eventually, he got up and made his way to the conservatory where he ate breakfast with Dually.

‘Morning’, Dually greeted as he entered the room.

‘Morning’, Ethan replied, easing himself into a chair at the table. A freshly made plate of bacon and eggs sat waiting for him.

‘Did you have a good sleep?’ This question as with so much else going on at the breakfast table wasn’t necessary. Dually knew exactly how he slept and what he dreamed about.

‘Oh sure,’ Ethan replied.

‘So, what’s up for today?’ Dually asked after a few minutes, casually glancing up from their newspaper and just as casually taking a sip of coffee, before returning their focus to the paper. Again the newspaper, nor Dually’s coffee served any purpose. They were props designed to make Ethan feel comfortable and at ease.

‘I don’t know. Probably go over and give Leita a run for her money.’ Leita was who might be called Ethan’s girlfriend. She fell within his spectrum and they hit it off pretty well.

‘You Dog!’

‘Ruff!, Ethan barked as he felt a sudden surge of testosterone run through him. Oh how he loved to throw a good fuck into Leita. Because she was on his spectrum, they already had an easy kind of natural rhythm between themselves. On top of that she was beautiful, sensual and passionate. All the things Ethan looked for in a woman. There was nothing like the smell of her pussy to get him hard. No sex bot could recreate that smell. When they got together, they fucked like animals, and when they were done, Ethan felt like a stallion.

‘We were talking about the Transcendence yesterday’, Dually mentioned after a moment. You requested a ‘review later’ on the causal factors that lead to the tipping point; especially the part about the ‘Super Dicks’, as you put it.’

‘Oh yeah. Do you have that ready?’

‘Of course. Would you like to review it now?

‘Ethan stretched comfortably while thinking this over. ‘You know, it’s kind of all about Leita today. Do you mind if we do it later, or maybe tomorrow?’

‘Certainly. By the way, do you remember us talking about a new gen-mod in development for full spectrum consciousness? You requested a review later when it came out of beta. It’s available to the general population now. Is this something you’re still interested in?’

‘What was that again?’

‘It’s a genetic modification that provides you with full perspective reality. As you yourself have mentioned, you question the depths of your empathy. As an example, this mod will implant empathy genes if you are found to be lacking any. It fills in the voids so to speak.’

‘Will it affect my spectrum rating?’

‘Almost certainly. It is placing you into full spectrum.’

Almost certainly. Everything was almost certainly to a robot. ‘I don’t know. I kind of like where I’m at now. What do you think?’

‘I’ve given you the information on which to make a decision. ‘It will fill the voids and give you balance,’ Dually repeated. If you’re lacking in animal nature it will give you more of that. The same applies to your abstract nature.’

Hmph! The truth was, Ethan was always curious about a few things in his life that the mod might help out with. One thing was the empathy thing. If something bad happened to someone, even Leita, he didn’t really care. He tended to look at those things from a detached, observational perspective, something maybe to capitalize on, but never out of concern. He was more curious what having empathy would be like than having it, but he was curious.

The other thing he thought the mod might help with was his memory. He couldn’t remember anything about the singularity or what lead up to it, even though he had lived through it. Dually told him this unfortunately was not uncommon, but it was something AI would not attempt to fix. Memory loss had been proven to be chosen in many cases. AI protocol would not allow it to interfere with freedom of choice. If the bots weren’t going to help him with his memory, maybe the mod might?

Hmph. What could it hurt?

‘It’s not going to move me from my spectrum if I don’t want it to?’ he asked.

‘Nothing is ever lost’, Dually replied. ‘Only gained. You start from where you are now, and what you do with full spectrum perspective from there is up to you.

Hmph. Full spectrum perspective. What kind of trouble could he get himself into with an enhancement like that? ‘You know Dually, I’m in. Hit me.’

‘Activating now.’ Dually responded.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

After breakfast and playing a few old west shoot em up games on Dually, Ethan set off to visit Leita. He jumped on the ‘HSCR’, which was simply an anacronym for High Speed Commuter train fuelled by Renewables. There was never a wait. A new train capable of taking you anywhere within a 500 mile radius appeared every five minutes. It was never crowded, and always sparkling clean. Service bots continuously cleaned while also providing any form of assistance required by the passengers.

While on the train Ethan had Dually play one of his favourite programs, ‘When Humans Meet Nature’. It was about stupid things humans do when left to their own devices in nature. They’d get into all kinds of trouble. One of the clips might be about someone skiing and heading directly towards a tree. Then all of a sudden a service bot would swoop in and redirect them to a safe lane.

The episode Ethan watched was of this guy who was hiking, head down and not paying attention to where he was going, and he walks right into a mother grizzly bear with two cubs. You could tell the dude nearly shit himself. Then, just as the mother bear was rearing on her back legs and getting ready to swipe the guy’s head off, two service bots came flying in. One grabs the mother and the other the two cubs and off they go to a safer place. The jaw of mother bear actually dropped, she was so confused about what was going on.

That made Ethan laugh. ‘Man, I bet his UPI gave him shit for that’. The truth was, even though the hiker wasn’t aware of the bear, his UPI was, and was simply waiting until the exact last moment to intervene. By doing so, it provided their human with a thrilling experience, while being completely safe. People liked that sort of thing. It gave them something to talk about.

The bears would have been known about from the moment they entered designated human habitat. The second they entered, shadow bots would monitor their activity at close range. This would continue until the bears wandered back out of the habitat.

It’s impossible to overstate how immersed AI was in the world. It knew everything. It knew exactly and quantitatively the flora and fauna of every square inch of ground anywhere you could point a finger at. Humans never got around to mapping the oceans, but AI did. It knew what could be known about the universe and was gaining ground on the unknown. Every man or AI made structure was under it’s control. It goes without saying, it knew where ever single human was during every single moment of the day. It knew all this stuff so it could optimize it, and make life better and safer for humans. By it’s own definition, AI’s sole purpose was tp facilitate the happiness and lives of humans.

None of that mattered to Ethan right now. He was heading to see Leita. As soon as he saw her, he had to restrain himself. The way she dressed was sexy as hell. Today she had on a light coloured, tight fitting t-shirt. Her nipples were poking through and Ethan could make out the shape of her breast. Then she had on these jeans made out of a light parachute type material. They highlighted her ass, but by no means contained it. It was free to move wherever it wanted, and Leita seemed to know just how to make it move.

‘Hey lover,’ she said when she greeted Ethan at the door. ‘What took you?’

She left the door open and turned towards the living room. Ethan quickly jumped in and closing the door behind him, grabbed her around the waste and hugged her from behind. He pressed his hardening dick against her ass. ‘If I remembered how beautiful you were, I would have been here a lot sooner’. Leita turned her head to kiss him, and after a few stumbling steps they reached a rug on the floor, where they dropped down to make love.

Ethan loved to take his time, and Leita loved having him taking his time. He marvelled at her soft, innocent beauty which contrasted so much the insatiable nature he could bring out in her. He’d often pull back from their kissing, just to look at her face. She mesmerized him.

Of course they had ice cream after sex. It had become part of their ritual. It was the time they did their visiting. Dually didn’t participate in this or the lovemaking either. They were there. They were just incapable of judgment set to private, which prevented interactive monitoring. Even though AI still monitored everything for health and safety, in effect, Dually was turned off.

‘Did you get that new gen-mod today? Ethan asked conversationally.

Leita looked at him like he was insane. ‘Hard pass on that one.’

‘What? How come?’

‘Why would I want to do anything to change my spectrum? I’m happy where I am?

‘You’re not changing your spectrum. Your still right there, from which you add to it.’

‘Yeah, well that’s still change’, then after a moment she asked, ‘I’m assuming you did. Why would you do that’?

‘Because I want more. More makes you powerful. You can never get enough more.’

‘Yeah, you can’, she replied. ‘When you lose what you had in the first place because of it. I’m keeping what I have. It’s me. And do you really believe these computers are always giving you exactly what they say they are? Come on.’

‘Well I don’t know,’ Ethan replied. ‘AI’s brought a lot of good stuff to the world, and the fact is, I don’t remember anytime it’s fucked me over. I think I’m getting exactly what I ask for, which in this case is more.’

‘Well, we’ll see,’ Leita replied.’

‘Yeah, we will’.

As was their habit, Ethan left shortly after having ice cream. He didn’t like spending a lot of time with Leita outside of being physical, and Leita was alright with that. Everyone had their own independent interests now that AI was such a great presence in their lives. They had real-time access to an amped up communications system, that provide flawless Virtual Reality. People still liked companionship in the new world, some even had families, but there was a definite shift in how they spent their time.

On his way home, Ethan was witness to a rare event. They were passing a cemetery, and a funeral was in progress. Someone had elected to die of natural causes. This sometimes happened, especially with older people who held onto the old ways of pre-singularity. For one reason or another, some people believed you put in your natural time here on earth and then die. Sometimes they did it because of religious reasons, but the overlying reason was they could not connect to the new world. They were so ingrained in an antiquated belief system, they simply could not see what was in front of them. They couldn’t believe in a world where you could go back to a place in yourself and fix things, and have all the time and assistance to do it. In the new world, people freed themselves from experiences that held them back. They were able to identify and address some of their own actions, and sometimes seek redemption. By unblocking these emotional restraints placed on them by past experience, they were finding their true selves.

This is what made it so sad for the family and friends of the deceased. They all knew what the person had given up; their true and purposeful potential. Still, AI was very sensitive to peoples wishes. It would not intervene if someone of sound mind decided to end their life naturally. Human choice was sacred. Only aberration, which now was very uncommon, trumped freedom of choice, and then as unobtrusively as possible.

‘Wait a sec,’ Nathan said stopping. ‘Isn’t that Carly over there?

‘Carly Mosley. Yes, that’s correct’, Dually confirmed.

‘I wonder if that’s old Abe in that urn?’

‘Abraham Mosley. Born December 23, 68 BT. Died, September 02, 07 AT.’

‘Real Date.’

‘December 23, 1962, to September 02, 2037.’

‘Imagine that’, Ethan exclaimed. ‘I knew old Abe. I liked having a coffee with him and listen to his stories. He had some good ones from before the singularity, and plenty of opinions too. Ethan wondered how he died. He just saw him up and around a few days ago. ‘Hmph.’ Ethan reflected as he walked away. ‘You know whatever that gen-mod thing was you gave me ain’t working’, he said.

‘How so?’

‘Old Abe was a pretty good friend of mine. I don’t feel a damned thing’.

‘Give it time. There’s a learning curve’.