Dark Skies

By johnnedwill

I remember the last time I saw my sister in the flesh. It was the day that she was uploaded to the Cloud, to join the billions of constructs already living in the computronium shell that circled the Earth. The process required the mapping of her body and nervous system; a process that created a digital duplicate of her memories and personality, but which left nothing behind but carbon dust.

The ceremony took place on a green hillside that overlooked the Irish Sea. Below us, to the east, were the remains of some long-abandoned town. A great horseshoe of limestone blocks stretched across the bay and had protected the town from the worst of the winter storms. Today there were no storms. Only an eerie stillness.

There were perhaps a dozen of us there to see my sister off - the only human inhabitants of this part of the world. The population of the world had declined to almost nothing in the decades following the creation of the matryoshka brain and the development of a virtual immortality. My sister made her way towards the place of her ascension, pausing to say a personal farewell to everyone attending. Of course, she left me - her only living relative - until last.

"Are you sure you won't join me, Liam?" she said to me. "Please?"

I shook my head. "No. I was born in this land. I want to die in this land."

My sister looked at me for a moment, then laughed. "Then will you at least stay here to see me go? I want my last memory of this existence to be of you."

"Alright. I will."

I followed my sister up the hill to the circle of standing stones. She looked beautiful in her woollen shift. There, waiting for her, was the psychopomp, an artificial being made of intelligent carbon dust. The psychopomp held up a hand to stop me. "No further," it said. "Today is not your day." I stopped. I was tempted to tell the psychopomp that it would never be my day; that even if the sun went out and hell grew cold, I would never become one of them. But I refrained.

My sister took her place between the ancient rocks, then turned to face us. The psychopomp glanced towards her. "Do you have any last words to say to those you are leaving behind?"

"Yes." My sister cleared her throat. "Thank you all for coming here. It is not the first time that we have seen one of us go to the Cloud. But, for me, it will be the last. I have had a good life here, but I have decided now that it must come to an end. I have decided to join those who have gone before me and who are waiting for me. To some of you," my sister looked straight at me, "it may seem that I am leaving you. But I will always remember you. Perfectly."

She looked up at the sky. Above her, the computronium clouds were changing from grey to black. Something was paying attention to us. "And now it is my time," my sister said. "Until we meet again."

The others turned to leave, making their way down the hill in twos and threes. My sister looked at me, imploring me. "Liam - please stay?"

I nodded and wiped a tear from my eye.

The psychopomp's head rotated towards my sister. "Martha Devlin. Do you, of your own free will, agree to have your personality and memories uploaded into the Cloud?

"I do."

"Then we shall begin."

The grass around the stone circle started to move, and there was the sound of sand being poured out. A dark figure rose up out of the soil: an exact duplicate of Martha, but dark and granular. It reached out towards my sister, and then -

As the avatar touched my sister, the black dust of its body rolled up her arm, coating like a slick of oil. Martha gasped; part in pain, part in ecstasy. I took a halting step towards her. But, once again, the psychopomp stopped me. "No," it said. "You may not interfere."

I stared at my sister. By now, half her body was covered in the blackness that poured from her avatar. "But! My sister - !"

"No." The psychopomp's rebuke was quiet, but firm. "She's in pain!"

"It is merely an effect of the mapping of her totality."

I looked past the psychopomp to my sister. Now she was completely enveloped in the substance of her avatar. I watched, horrified, as it consumed her. The expression on her face changed continually, going from anger to happiness to agony to pleasure as the avatar stimulated her and absorbed her. I stumbled forward, croaking in grief and madness and ...

When I recovered my senses, my sister was gone. Only the psychopomp remained. "Where is she?" I asked.

"Be happy," the psychopomp replied. "The mapping was successful. Martha Devlin is now part of the Cloud." It glanced upwards. "Until you join us."

"Never," I said; but the psychopomp was no longer there to hear me. Its purpose done for now, its animating force had released the carbon particles that made up its body, leaving nothing but dust that dissipated in the air.

I returned to my life. As I mourned my sister, I found myself slipping away from human society. Martha had always been the more gregarious of us, always been the one who had brought me news from our neighbours scattered along the peninsula. For as long as I could remember, our numbers had decreased every year. The promise of eternal life had been an irresistible temptation to many of Earth's inhabitants. At first, it had only been the rich and the elites who could afford to be uploaded. But, with the advent of ubiquitous computing and self- replicating nanotechnology, the prospect of life as a digital construct was extended to everyone.

There were a few hold-outs: those who - for whatever reason - had not yet migrated to the computronium cloud. For some it was that they still had things to attend to. For others, the reasons were more existential. In my case it was fear. When I was a child I had almost drowned. As the water covered my head and filled my lungs, I was aware of my consciousness dissolving. I was rescued by my father. He had heard Martha's screams and dived into the sea to save me. My next memory was of the taste of bile as I vomited out the water. But - between that and horrible sensation of suffocation as I sank beneath the surface of the bay? There was nothing but a blank. It was then that I realised I was mortal: born to live, but doomed to die.

This revelation terrified me. The thought of ceasing to exist, even momentarily, was anathema. Uploading myself would mean the destruction of my body and my physical death. So I could bring myself to join those of my friends and family who had already made that transition to an electronic eternity.

For a while after Martha's ascension, friends came to visit me and to reminisce. We would sit together, share the moonshine from my still and talk about the things she had done, the people she had left behind and the people she had gone to be with. We also speculated why my sister had decided to go. She had given no reasons, left no clues. But, as time wore on, people stopped coming to visit. I was left alone.

I didn't worry about this turn of events. Like many of my generation, I was comfortable with solitude. The mechanics of existence took up a lot of time, and I had plenty of interests to pursue. Then, one night, as I was sitting at my table and reading an old novel from my library, there was a knock at the door of my cottage. It was my sister.

"Hello, Liam," she said. I stood motionless at the door, unable to believe what I was seeing. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" she asked.

Automatically, I stood to one side to let Martha in. She looked around my parlour. "I see you haven't changed."

I found my voice. "I didn't see any point. I've got everything I need or want."

"Everything?" Martha stared at me, her eyes unnaturally clear and focussed. "What about friends? What about family?"

I turned away from her, unable to return her gaze. "There's Will down the old coast road. We used to talk - "

"Used to."

I ignored the interruption. "And the Lewins aren't too far away."

"Really? Are you sure about that? When was the last time you spoke to anyone? Saw anybody?"

"Let me think ... "

Martha's demeanour changed without warning. "I know how long it's been! I've been watching you since I uploaded, and do you know how long that has been? It's been a year, Liam. A year since you last spoke to anyone but yourself!"

A year? Really? It can't be. "Well, there isn't much going on."

"You're not wrong." Martha pulled over her favourite chair and sat down. She motioned for

me to join her at the table. "Do you know that you are the last person left here?" "I wouldn't say that- "

Martha slammed her fist into the table. The wood cracked under the force of her blow. "I would. Joseph Lewin died three months ago. Another one lost forever." For a moment Martha seemed on the verge of tears, then she recovered. "His wife joined us. And your friend Will migrated three weeks ago. There is only you left now, Liam. Only you."

I stared at my sister in disbelief. "Only me? What do you mean?"

She gestured at the window and the silent landscape beyond. "There is nobody else here. You are literally the last man on Earth."

A chill crept into my bowels. "Nobody else?" The grey computronium sky outside grew darker, as if it something was listening to our conversation.

Martha continued. "You have been the subject of some debate. There are factions in the Cloud. Some want to expand the computing surface of the matryoshka brain, to allow more simulation spaces. To them, this planet is a convenient source of raw materials. Others want to preserve it as some kind of memorial to what we once were. But humans - both analogue and digital - are selfish creatures at heart. The Expansionists are winning the debate, and they will not let a single human stand in their way. You - ." She paused to consider her next words. "You need to consider the options that are open to you."

It took a moment for me to realise the implications of what my sister had said. "Is that a threat?"

"No." My sister shook her head. "Liam, I love you. I could never threaten you. Think of it as a warning. You can join me in the Cloud. Or you can wait here to die. Or be consumed." She put a hand on my arm. It felt unnaturally cold and heavy, and I remembered that this not my real sister. It was just a digital projection inhabiting an avatar. A mouthpiece for what a memory of what had once been.

I pushed her hand away. "I don't believe you."

"Liam!"

I stood up and went to the door. "I think you should leave."

Martha - the thing that thought it was Martha - left its seat. "You need to make your mind up, Liam. If you don't believe me, go and see for yourself. But, whatever you do, remember that I love you." She opened the door and dissolved, they dust that made up her body blowing away in the wind.

She left me with mind a blur, my thoughts confused. It was possible that the thing that was my sister had lied to me, but I could not bring myself to believe that of her. It was also possible that she was was telling the truth. There was only one way to resolve the uncertainty. I would have to see for myself. I spent a sleepless night then, in the morning, packed a knapsack with provisions and gifts, and set off.

Will and the Lewins lived in opposite directions along the coast road - the Lewins to the north and Will to the south. As Will was the closer of the two, I decided I would try his house first. I followed the path to the coast road and turned south.

At first the landscape was exactly as I remembered it: meadows of stiff grass rippled in the sea breeze; waves rolled in and boomed against the shoreline; the grey sky shifted fitfully above. Occasionally I would glance up, knowing that something had been observing me and was likely doing do even now. But as I followed the trail of broken asphalt, I began to notice how things had changed. Except for the plants, the shore was barren and lifeless. Great scars had been gouged out of the plains to the west. Far out at sea, skeletal structures pierced the horizon. By the time I reached where Will's cottage had been, there was nothing living to be seen. Instead there was bare rock. Lines of stone and brick marked what had once been the foundations of somebody's home.

A drone of some kind was picking at the ruins. It looked like a block of metal suspended atop spidery limbs. The drone made its way through the ruins, pausing only to extrude a proboscis of some kind from its body and drag it along the ground. Then the metal block would grow slightly, the proboscis would be drawn back into the drone, and the cycle continue.

I stood in front of the machine and raised my hands. "Hey!"

The drone stopped. A sensor cluster extruded from it and bobbed up and down. "What do you want?" it asked. If it had been human, its question would have had a hint of peevishness.

"Tell me what is going on here."

"Retrieval of trace resources." The drone retracted its sensors and tried to sidestep around me.

"No. Wait." I danced back in front of it. "Where is Will Grand? The man who lived here?"

"There is no one living here." Once again, the drone tried to get past me. "There is a quote to be completed. Please do not interfere."

"Will Grand," I repeated. "Tell me where he is."

The drone paused. "Will Grand migrated to the Cloud approximately two times ten to the six seconds ago. Do you wish to speak to him?"

"No," I said. "I don't." I stood aside. The machine continued with its assigned task.

Disheartened, and realising that I would now not be home before dark, I set off back along the coast road to my cottage. The cold sea breeze grew stronger, and the grey nanoparticle clouds scudded across the sky. Then the grass started to move erratically, and there was the sound of sand being poured. A figure rose up next to me.

"Well, Liam?" It was my sister's avatar. I walked past it, ignoring her. Again, there was the whispering of sand, and my Martha's avatar appeared beside me, keeping pace with me. "You can't just walk away from this," she said. I didn't reply. "Oh! You were always too stubborn for your own good! Well, this is not just going to go away. If you won't join us in the Cloud, then I will make sure that you are uploaded - whether you like it or not!"

I stopped and glared at her. "No. Never."

"Why not? You can live forever in the Cloud?"

Memories of salt water and oblivion rose in my mind. "Live? Or exist? Tell me - do you know the difference? I do."

"There is no difference!"

"Is that what you believe? Or is what they want you to think? How do I know that your personality hasn't been edited? How do I know that you're even you?" I turned my back on her once more, and set off.

The sun had set an hour before I reached my cottage. In the twilight, I could see that there was a flickering yellow light shining through the window. I knew that I hadn't left the lantern burning when I set out, so somebody must have come in and lit it. My heart leapt! That meant that that I had a visitor! So much for my sister's claim that I was alone! I stumbled down the path in my haste, tripping over the threshold as I pushed open the front door. Then I stopped.

There were two figures in the room - the psychopomp and Martha. I pulled myself up and shouted at them, "Get out! This is my house!"

My sister stepped forward. "I'm sorry, Liam. I've come to a decision."

The psychopomp followed her, a step behind Martha. "Liam Devlin: today is your day." From behind me, I heard the sound of sand being poured out.