Ethan woke as he did everyday; naturally and without interruption. Sleep was the rejuvenator of body and soul, and according to AI, should never be interrupted. Ethan loved waking up in the morning. The time between sleep and wakefulness, was always comforting. He’d watch as a wisp of a dream left him, or some fleeting thought from his subconscious lingered for a moment. It was a wonderfully lazy, and wandering time of the day.

Once awake, Ethan stayed in bed a few minutes longer, just relaxing and giving himself time to fully awaken. There was no hurry. As mentioned, he had all the time in the world.

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?’

‘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. The newspaper, and Dually’s coffee served no other purpose than to bring a sense of familiarity and comfort to Ethan’s environment.

‘I don’t know. Probably go over and give Leita a run for her money.’ Leita was Ethan’s girlfriend. She fell within his spectrum and they hit it off pretty well. He spent quite a bit of time with her.

‘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 her smell. No sex bot could recreate that smell. Leita’s smell was primal and when they were together, they fucked like animals. When they were done, Ethan felt like a stallion.

‘We were talking about the Enlightenment yesterday’, Dually mentioned after another 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? Maybe tomorrow?’

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

‘What was that again?’

‘It’s a genetic modification that provides you with full perspective reality. As you yourself have mentioned, you sometimes question the depths of your empathy. As an example, this mod will add empathy genes if you are found to be lacking any. It will allow you to see life from the full spectrum of reality.’

‘Will it affect my spectrum rating?’

‘Almost certainly. It will enhance your perspective.’

Almost certainly. Everything was almost certainly to a robot. ‘I don’t know. I like where I’m at now.’

‘Where you are now, is where you will begin with this modification. Any changes to your spectrum will be consciously made by you. All it will do is provide you with a larger canvas from which to look at life,’ Dually continued. ‘If you’re lacking in animal nature it will give you more of that. The same applies to your abstract nature’.

More. Ethan loved the idea of more. He wanted more. He hungered for it. In addition, he was always curious about a few things in his life which the mod might help him figure out. One was the empathy thing. If something bad happened to someone, even Leita, it didn’t really phase him. He tended to look at those things like everything else; from a detached, observational perspective. It might interest him if it was something he could capitalize on, but nothing more than that. He didn’t feel he was lacking anything by not having empathy. Still, he was curious about the emotions it produced in others.

The other thing, and most important thing, he thought the mod might help with was his memory. He couldn’t remember anything about the Enlightenment or what lead up to it. He had lived through it, but he didn’t remember any of it. It was like his life began after the Enlightenment. Although this was unfortunate, Dually told him it was not uncommon. Many people did not retain memories of pre-Enlightenment. Memory loss had been proven to be a chosen phenomena. AI considered it a personal choice, even though the choice to forget may not be remembered. AI had the ability to restore memory, but it felt it in violation of freedom of choice. It would assist in retrieving memory, but Ethan found this to be an ardours process with, in his case, only superficial results. Maybe the mod might help with his memory?

‘Hmph. What can it hurt?’ Ethan thought. ‘It’s not going to move me from my spectrum if I don’t want it to?’ he confirmed.

‘It’s all up to you. Nothing is ever lost. You only stand to gain’, Dually replied. ‘Who you are now is your starting point. Where you take it 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.

After breakfast and playing a few western shoot em up games on Virtual Reality via 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. The trains were never crowded, and always sparkling clean. Service bots continuously cleaned while also providing any form of assistance required by passengers.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

While on the train Ethan had Dually play one of his favourite online entertainment programs, ‘When Humans Meet Nature’. It was about the trouble humans can get into when left to their own devices in nature. A clip might show someone skiing directly towards a tree, then all of a sudden a service bot would swoop in behind them, and redirect them to a safe lane.

The episode Ethan watched was of a guy who was hiking, head down and not paying attention to where he was going. All of a sudden 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 about to swipe his head off, two service bots came flying in. One grabs the mother bear, and the other the cubs, and off they go out of harms way. It was the mother bear’s reaction that made the episode worth watching. Her jaw actually dropped in surprise as she was being whisked away.

That made Ethan laugh. ‘Man, I bet that guy’s UPI gave him shit for that one’, he thought. The truth was, even though the hiker wasn’t aware of the bear, his UPI and every other bot in the vicinity were. His UPI was simply waiting for the exact last moment to intervene. By doing so, it provided their human with a thrilling experience while at the same time, a completely safe one. People liked that sort of thing. It gave them something to talk about.

The AI knew about the bears. 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 on the earth. Humans never got around to mapping the oceans, but AI did. It knew everything about the known universe, and was compoundingly gaining understanding of 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 to facilitate the happiness and lives of humans.

None of that was at the forefront of Ethan’s mind right now. He was going to see Leita and she pretty much filled his thoughts. She had something over Ethan. He wasn’t sure what. Just the way she was, drew him to her. The way she dressed. The way she moved. The way she was always in-step with him somehow. She was sexy as hell too. Today Leita was dressed casual as was her preference. She wore a light coloured t-shirt and cargo pants made of a very light parachute type material. Her ass was bouncing all over the place and her nipples and the shape of her breast pressed against her t-shirt.

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

She nonchalantly turned towards the living room. Ethan quickly jumped inside and closed the door behind him. He grabbed her around the waste and hugged her from behind, pressing 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 in their embrace, Ethan guided her to a rug on the living room floor. As usual, they made love on the first flat surface they could find.

Ethan always took his time with Leita. He marvelled at her soft, innocent beauty which contrasted so much the insatiable nature of her love making. He’d often pull back from their kissing, just to look at her face. It sent thrills through him everytime.

Their lovemaking tended to follow a script. It began with passion and tended to end rather aggressively. No hitting or anything like that. Just hard love making, like they were almost in competition with each other. They found that produced the explosive results they were after. When they finished, they were spent and satisfied.

Of course they always had ice cream after sex. It had become part of the ritual. It was the time they did their visiting.

‘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. Everything’s the same, you’re just adding to it.’

‘Yeah, well that’s still change, and it’s against the laws of nature.’ 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. At least I know it’s me. 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 when it’s screwed 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. You know Leita, you could learn to trust a little more. Not everyone is out to get you.’

‘We’ll see about that too’.

As was their habit, Ethan left shortly after the ice cream. He didn’t like spending a lot of time with Leita outside of their physical relationship. He was a busy man, doing nothing in particular, but he liked to do it alone. It was a world of self-discovery now. You did it alone, especially when you had the distraction of an amped up Virtual Reality system waiting for you at home.

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 before the Enlightenment. For one reason or another, some people believed you put in your natural time here on earth and then you die. Sometimes they were compelled by religious reasons, but it went beyond that. The overlying reason was they could not connect to the new world. They were ingrained into an antiquated belief system, and were too afraid to look at the promise that lay before them. They could not accept a world where you didn’t die. It was too overwhelming. A world where you could look back on your life, and free yourself from experiences that held you back. By unblocking these emotional restraints people were able to find the potential of their true selves. People had time now to find and free themselves, but it was all too confusing for some.

This is what made it so sad for the family and friends of the deceased. They all knew what the person had forfeited their true and purposeful potential. Still, AI was very sensitive to peoples wishes. It would not intervene if someone of sound mind decided their life should end naturally. Human choice was sacred. Only aberration, which now was 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 (Before Transcendence). 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 listening 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, that gen-mod thing was you gave me ain’t working’.

‘How so?’

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

‘Give it time,’ Dually replied. There’s a learning curve’.