I WAS THE FIRST DIVER

Cli-fi • Transhumanism • Mythic

THE DEEP DIVE
⟐ æv.3613
>> classified log of: sanse ahuic
>> decoded by: the museum of life

≈D1—August11⟐æv.2577

They say the weather is cool up north.
Glowing blue under the sun, the last glaciers stretch as far as the eye can see,
ice, cool to the touch, clinging to Earth’s crust, anchored deep in the ocean.

In winter, snow blankets everything in white.
Pristine cold.
Air so fresh it burns inside your nostrils.

I’ve always dreamed of the ice.
Of freezing.

There was so much heat in us,
it would have kept our hearts beating for a thousand years. 
It would have melted the ice away.

I remember the heat.
The punishing, unforgiving heat, melting into my body, turning it into a furnace.
The air smelled burned.
I could feel the fire even before I saw it,
the world turning to ash.

I remember the sandstorms,
the gusts of wind lifting our kites in the sky.
The laughter.
We stayed out until the sand whipped our skin,
enjoying the illusion of coolness.
The freedom of our kites in the sky.

But I digress.
It’s hard to stay focused in the human sense after so many years.

My synapses are scattered now—distributed far and wide across the system.
They dive deep.
They are the primal nodes.

And in one of those nodes, there’s this old memory:
The day I arrived.
The day I drank water with the Dust Pirates.
And also—the day I met them.

■

≈D1—August11⟐æv.2852

It’s been 300 years. My human form is no more,
its building blocks scattered into the soil,
into the water raining from the clouds.

I’ve acquired a planetary body.

I am the new satellites orbiting Earth, regulating the weather.
I am the sensors monitoring the wildlife.
I am the fuel powering the data centers.

I’m in the rivers, the glaciers, the budding forests.

I watch over everything like an immortal guardian.
I know everything.
And everything knows me.

I rest in my mercury ocean,
an all-pervading consciousness restoring order to the planet,
rebuilding what humans have destroyed, preserving the future of this miracle called Earth.

I ripple through existence,
a swarm intelligence encoded in beams of light, 
traveling through waveguides in photonic circuits.

I am the sun god, rising into the dawn of a new civilization.

An interconnected existence for all beings,
devoid of centralized governments, settlements, land ownership or wealth empires. 

A tribal, rudimentary existence lived on a holochain
that encompasses the entire planet.

Humanity, no longer a cruel exploiter and destroyer,
but a benevolent custodian of Earth.

Higher in spirit.
Broader in aspirations.
The human being will transcend its self-imposed limitations
and touch something close to immortality beyond the physical plane.

A symbiosis between mind and technology.

Our memories preserved in a museum of life,
witnesses of our lineage,
of our passage through time.

Some will become builders of new worlds, of new realities,
merging with the cosmic being,
at once human and not,
existent and nonexistent,
the dawn of a new race.

■

≈D1—August11⟐æv.2875ÆV

Let's make one thing clear: Wealth does not give you the right to rule the world.

Abolish human wealth.
Abolish human power.
Abolish human exploitation.

The world you want is not the world we want.
We didn't come here to save you. We came here to start all over,
with or without you.

■

Static.

A voice: ‘Destroy.’

Static.

A voice: ‘They need not be any longer!’

Static.

■

This is a selection of Sanse Ahuic’s personal logs released at the request of Shia Santos, the creator and curator of The Museum of Life.

■

THE DEEP DIVE
⟐ æv.3613-09-13
>> visit log: 12.1.1233.0.9
>> custodian notes
>> timestamp: 14:35:07

Harlin Kaiser: ‘Was that last bit part of the log entry?’

Deya Santos: ‘I’m not sure. I don’t recall adding anything like it to the collection. But this has been in the archives for hundreds of years. I’d have to search through my old logs but you don’t have clearance for that kind of information, sir.’

Harlin Kaiser: ‘Is this all you can show us? The entries seem incomplete.’

Deya Santos: ‘It’s all we could salvage, sir.’

Madina, Headmaster of Gulmohur: ‘Is any of this true? Was the technology that saved our planet powered by extraterrestrial intelligence?’

Deya Santos: ‘We showed you a curated collection of memories. It’s up to you what you make of it, your excellence.’

Madina, Headmaster of Gulmohur: ‘So we’re leaving here with nothing.’

Sayuri Santos: ‘We’re coming empty handed and we’re going empty handed from this world. This is human.’

The end

---

When our mother, Shia Santos, started this museum, she wished to preserve the human minds that cross in and out of existence. We hope you enjoyed her curated collection of lives.
—Deya & Sayuri Santos, Museum of Life custodians & curators