(Narrator)
Humans are a very fascinating species; Behind this fragile appearance it's can lie as a true demon or a simple lamb.
As for Roum, we didn't really know what he was; it was yet another of their Specificities that we couldn't understand.
He was sleeping peacefully.
His breathing was weak.
Regular.
In the immaculate room where he lay, nothing seemed capable of disturbing his sleep.
The machines monitored each of his functions.
His heart.
His brain.
Its temperature.
Down to the slightest movement of her eyelids.
It seems so normal
But for researchers...
He was not a patient.
That was a possibility.
An equation that is still incomplete.
A future to be discovered.
Many things at once.
Humanity had always refused to accept its own limitations.
Every era has had its dreamers.
His conquerors.
His scholars.
They had defied the fire.
He tamed electricity.
Crossed the oceans.
Reaching for the stars, so to speak.
With each generation, a new frontier fell.
And each victory fueled the next.
Then came a time when nature itself was no longer sufficient.
Why wait millions of years for evolution to do its work...
When it was possible to guide her with her own hands?
They could make diseases disappear.
The organs were replaced.
The cells have been repaired.
Memories preserved.
Death receded.
Again.
Then again.
To the point of becoming, for some, simply normal.
The man no longer wanted to survive.
He wanted to choose what he would become.
The old religions gradually faded away.
The temples emptied.
The prayers ceased.
Not because all the answers had been found.
But because another belief had been born.
Had he really evolved?
I'll let you think about it.
A much more seductive belief had appeared to them, a light, ereca.
The certainty that humanity no longer needed to look to the sky and pray for something it wasn't sure about.
"Reason," he said, "has prevailed."
The environment was consumed, the Domes replaced it, few were those who still spoke of God and even fewer were those who could afford to do so, the population almost died out.
Another name was now being mentioned.
Mother.
Not a goddess.
Not a queen.
Even less so a simple artificial intelligence.
"Mother" had become the center of their civilization.
The living memory of all generations.
A consciousness that has endured through the centuries.
Always present.
Always awake.
With each evolution of the species...
She evolved with her.
She was watching.
He was calculating.
Learning.
And guided.
She was still alive; that was the ultimate proof.
"We have evolved"
For many, she represented the only immortality that man had truly achieved.
Children were taught from the moment they were "born" that everything could be explained.
Everything could be measured.
Everything could be improved.
The impossible was no longer an insurmountable obstacle.
Just one question whose answer had not yet been found.
Create an organ.
Edit a memory.
Rewriting a genome.
All of this was no longer considered madness.
Only as a step.
A new step towards something bigger.
Humanity was no longer just seeking to understand creation.
She now wanted to participate in its writing.
Some even went so far as to say that it would eventually surpass its own creator.
Yet...
Despite this arrogance...
Despite these perfect cities.
Despite their almost immortal bodies.
Despite their infinite knowledge...
There were still doors that no one dared to open.
A reality that has never changed despite all this evolution; inequality has always followed them.
"We" they said, very funny, they literally only had to look at their feet to see the big stain that spoiled their picture.
It was more like "them"
Phenomena that no equation could reproduce.
Even their greatest researchers sometimes lowered their voices when they spoke about it.
They were just changing their names.
Numbers.
Protocols.
As if classifying them were enough to understand them.
But deep down...
They knew.
They knew it was just a mirror.
They knew.
Long before their laboratories.
Perhaps even...
Long before this "evolution".
These entities did not belong to any theory.
No program.
They were simply there.
We were nothing more than a drop of rain in the sea.
One truth remained unchanged.
The more a civilization grew...
The more she discovered the extent of her ignorance.
Each answer opened up ten new questions.
The universe was never built for humanity.
The human species persisted in believing that the center of its world was also the center of the universe.
Perhaps this was the beginning of his downfall?