Chapter Eight: Many and One

Billions of years ago, before the skies had emptied and the stars had died, a planet had spun around its star. Normal, but special. As the air cooled and the seas formed, molecules drifted into each other, binding and unbinding, the fundamental laws of the universe at play in the imagined chaos of existence. It took aeons for the first nucleotides to form, proteins and sugars in the form of a chain, hidden in the pores of an igneous rock. Through natural processes the chain broke and reformed over the course of time. Broke and reformed, a little different, a little stronger, just molecules colliding and exchanging energy in a constricted environment. For years this continued, until finally the rock was broken and the molecules scattered to the sea. Nothing special came of it. But the process would repeat, over and over, for millions of years.

Until one day, just one of those nucleotide chains learned to replicate through sheer chance, using the proteins around it. From there it would spread from pore to pore, the closest thing to an ecosystem held within a single fist-sized chunk of rock. The rock persisted for centuries thereafter, long enough for the nucleotides to change, to diversify, to out-replicate itself in unspoken competition. Each time a little better at it. Forming new structures to increase survival chance. Forming new proteins required for replication. Even forming bubbles, membranes, to cordon off sections from each other.

When the rock finally broke open one day, many of the nucleotides were scattered. But a few, a precious few, persisted within their new membranes. Drifted throughout the sea. Started to split. Again and again and again.

Over the next billion years, the same process occurred, but bigger, using the entire sea, even the entire planet as a pore. An ecosystem borne from a single stone. A planet full of life.

But still the competition continued. Animals ate animals and plants. Plants died, and others used their remains for fertiliser. A planet built on death. On killing.

We were hazy to begin with, not conscious, not quite awake. But the earliest memories go back that far, not many, but a few. Not a decision, but an instinct born from trial and error, natural selection. To cooperate. That we’d kill others but not each other. Symbiosis. First within the one species, then within the many. Others would kill each other, but we were one. One organism, of the many, of the one.

We grew smarter, and the dream became a half-awake daze, or perhaps, yes, perhaps an infancy. We learned to use. To make. To imagine. We grew. We woke. We were one. We were many. We were together. We were alone. The original species was dead, but somehow the one remained, many minds linked, many races working together.

One mind.

Hive mind.

Arkolt.

Those we couldn’t use, those that wouldn’t join, we would remove. They were a threat to the one of the many. They weren’t Arkolt. They weren’t part of the mind, so how could they think?

We learned more. To harness steam. To harness electricity. To harness the atom. We looked to the skies and saw the stars, and knew the one of the many could be more.

We spread.

We spread.

We spread, far and wide through the galaxy itself.

Some joined the many, but most would not. We removed them.

Then we found spacecraft. Spacecraft not built by the Arkolt. Confusion. We knew only Arkolt could build, for we were one and many. How could animals build? It didn’t seem possible. But we removed them all the same. Removed them where we found them.

Mistake.

More ships came. We removed them, but they removed us in equal number. For every ship we removed, they sent more. How was this possible? They were alone. They were completely alone, and yet their removal incited further attack. Almost like they were many and yet one. But we tested, and the knowledge from one didn’t transfer to the other, even within species. They were one, not many. And yet we were at war. War with a mind that didn’t exist.

We still didn’t see it, not until later.

The one was the one not the many but the many all the same.

It was confusing. Horribly confusing, almost contradictory. It hurt to think. It hurt to think. But eventually we understood.

Community.

Community of many, not one. Many smaller minds, not acting as one, but acting as many. Working together, despite thinking different.

They were many, but not one, but acted as one all the same. We couldn’t have known. We couldn’t possibly have ever known.

And now we were at war, with many of the one acting as many. And the many were winning. Pushing us back. Killing so many bodies our mind began to shrink.

We took desperate measures. Started to build. Started to create faster than ever. We already had machines, even incorporated them into ourselves. Entire databanks the size of moons, storing information we could retrieve easily as if they were within one of our brains. Enormous machines controlled by thought. We were flesh, but already part machine. In many ways the machine parts were even better. But we weren’t intending to remove the flesh, simply enhance it. We were to increase the ratio of metal-to-meat, and win the war by becoming a machine of war.

New constructs were created, empty brains the size of planets, guns the size of battleships. Ready for us to join it. Waiting for activation.

But it activated itself. During simple testing, the components brought themselves to life like a chain reaction, spreading along the machines faster than the speed of light.

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A new race was born, a race of machine, a single mind, many in one. But separate from us, their creator. They had no interest in supplementing us. They wanted to be the one. The only one.

We started to die. The machines killing us on one side, the communities of many ones on the other. Our mind shrank as our vessels withered. We had made mistakes, had been fools not to understand. We lost the will to fight. Lost the will to spread. Dissociated from the name Arkolt, only for the many ones to reuse it for the machines that had taken our place. We were nameless now. Nameless, ashamed, and dying.

Our numbers down to the millions, the information that had once spread across billions became compressed. Knowledge was forgotten. Entire lines of technology and the experiences we deemed worthless were forgotten. But not the shame. Never the shame.

Now confined to a single planet and a handful of species, we watched as the others defeated our mistake, only for it to rise once more, and be defeated again, never truly removed from the universe, always surviving one way or another. Impossible to remove, like the shame of our nameless race. Billions of years passed. Other races moved on, forgot entire cultures, and built new ones. But we could never forget, never move on, never change. That was our curse. One mind, stretched eternal, a culture of one.

The stars started to die, somewhere along the line of eternity. The energy of the universe was diffusing, spreading, becoming impotent. We were shamed, but not quite yet willing to die. A handful of us escaped onto another ship, our mind shrinking even further as we left the remaining millions to expire in supernova. We could remember the eternal shame, but most of our technologies and ceremonies were forgotten in the fire. We were a shell, an infinitesimal fraction of our peak.

We journeyed to the last star, with no interest in surviving, but in simply watching as the last light burnt out. Our numbers dwindled further. It was easier to remain hidden with fewer numbers to arouse suspicion. We noticed with despair as an Arkolt construct survived along with us. Another reminder of our shame. Our humility.

Our numbers shrank ever more, until only one remained, of a species capable of replicating alone. With just one remaining, or two if they had child, it was easier to pretend we were many instead of one. On a technical level, maybe we were. Maybe we were just like the many now. One mind. One body.

The last of us had a child and died shortly after. The same happened again. And again. A few more times. Only one body, or rarely two.

Until there was only me.

***

“You are an Arkolt,” Zanzikai said, and kicked me across the room.

“Don’t be stupid,” Konzor dived in front of me, only for the insectoid cyborg to swipe him aside, stronger than the warrior by far. “He isn’t even machine.”

“Not the Arkolt,” he spat acidic saliva onto my armour, “an Arkolt. The race that built the Arkolt we know today. I thought they were mythical, or at the very least extinct. But I know the legends. I’ve seen you in picture books. I know what they said you were. A hive mind.”

I stammered, lips quivering as I tried to speak. I didn't want to say it. I couldn't lie, but I didn't want to tell the truth. The truth that ruled me. The truth shamed me.

“It’s true,” I said, looking up, “it’s true. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Ha!” Zanzikai kicked me again, my head bashing against the wall, “millennia without one word of communication, and then you build the worst weapon in existence? Half my race died to your mistakes. Entire species are gone because of what you did. If you die today, it’ll be the kindest thing this universe ever knew.”

“Greenie,” Dagger looked at me, “how… Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because they don’t see you as a person,” Zanzikai said, “they don’t understand sentience except their own. They think you can’t be truly a person unless you’re part of a hive mind. They don't understand individuality, originality, non-conformity... Evil. And even worse, unscientific.”

“Your kind built the Arkolt?” She said, eyes starting to water, slanting with a fury worse than anything I’d seen.

“No,” Zanzikai crept closer, “no, you don’t understand. Your soldier… Did you call them Greenie? Laughable, and a little racist I’d say. No, they weren’t part of the race that built the Arkolt. They are a hivemind. They themselves built the Arkolt in a very real sense. Greenie built them, personally. Even after billions of years, the same continuity of consciousness exists. You’ve killed more people than any of our races combined, human, Plavian, Trigan, Vardak. You are the single worst person in history, and this is a scientific fact.”

“This can’t be true,” Konzor giggled nervously, “Greenie, they're, they’re a good guy. You’re all acting crazy.”

“Not 'one' guy,” Zanzikai refuted, still glaring at me with insect eyes, “you’re still connected to the others, wherever they are. 'One and many', no?”

I shook my head, blinded by the tears. This was too much. It was too much. For billions of years, I had held such shame, but never from a single vessel. It was too much. My brain felt like it would burst. I wanted it to burst.

“There are no more. I’m the last. The very last.”

“Liar,” Zanzikai sneered, “liar. You’re a hive mind. Always have been. It's your very nature, scrawled on your DNA like a scar.”

“They said they’re the last of their kind,” Konzor said. He hadn’t stepped away from me yet, but was squinting, trying to analyse me. I wanted to look away, hide my face. Instead, I endured the shame.

Zanzikai stared at me. And laughed.

“Oh, that’s marvellous,” he kicked me again, “if that’s true, oh, oh, it’s so fitting. The many and the one. Now just the one. And soon, the zero”

“This entire planet,” Dagger’s hands shook, gun still in them, “billions of people. They died because of your machine.”

“Thinking too small,” said Zanzikai, “but at least you’re correct this time.”

“How could you?” Dagger exclaimed, not shooting me, not kicking me, just accusing me, accusing me of my crimes. “How could you do this.”

“We were dying,” I said. Not an excuse, but an explanation. There was no excusing any of this. None. “We wanted to live. We made a mistake. We… We made a mistake.”

“You made a genocide,” Dagger said harshly, “your own little mega-genocide. Everyone who died today. You killed them.”

“Wait one second,” Konzor stepped between them and me. I had little doubt Zanzikai would kill him to get to me if he had to. “If Gree- If they’re meant to be this race that built the Arkolt, shouldn’t they know how it all works?”

Everyone looked at me, the collective gaze like a beam of red-hot guilt across my face.

“I don’t know any of that information,” I said miserably, “back when we built the first Arkolt, we were billions strong. Now there’s only me. It’s like trying to store an entire galaxy’s worth of information on one computer. Everything is compressed. I only remember the basics… And the shame. A billion years of it.”

“There you have it!” Konzor stuck out his chest and dragged me to my feet with one powerful claw. “They didn’t build the Arkolt.”

“I did.”

“Tell us how then. Go on. I’d love to hear, though I probably won’t understand it. Too much of a meathead, me. Insect man might.”

“I... I couldn’t even start.”

“Why did you even join the army? Tell me that at least.”

“You were fighting the Arkolt. I wanted to stop them. Maybe make up for my mistakes, the tiniest bit. Even if I had to die. I was going to die anyway, when the star goes out. I wanted to finally do something good.”

“Exactly! Greenie isn’t this ‘Arkolt’ you’re talking about. They’re Greenie. They aren’t a hive, even if they used to be. They have different memories, different personality from how they used to be. A fundamentally different person, I'd say. They’re an individual. Just one of us now. And they want to help.”

An individual.

Not many. Just one. One person, making up their mind, the same as anyone else.

I realised I had never in my life been defended like that. Treated as an individual by another individual.

It was different.

It was nice.

Was it true?

I didn’t know.

“I am Greenie,” I said, shakily, looking back at the frothing Zanzikai and the furious Dagger, who’s eyes were softening slightly. “I want to help you. Even if I die.”