“They wish us to be sheep, or cattle, something docile they can harvest for resources. But we are not sheep. We are not cows. We are not even human; we are more than that.”
Kali reached a hand into a pocket in her shifting dress and retrieved a switchblade. The blade extended with a schick, picked up and amplified by the microphones hovering before her.
She dropped her head and stared at the knife. Her audience watched her in silence, the soft buzz of quadcopter rotors the only sound in the entire room. They watched her press her left index finger against the knife’s point until it drew blood. A drop of blood rolled down the blade and fell, splashing onto the top of her bare foot with a quiet splat.
“We are not even human,” she said again. “This blood is not precious.” She flicked her hand out dismissively, but if any blood trailed off her finger, JD couldn’t see it. “This blood is not what makes me special.
“A human is an animal that learned how to subjugate animals, including itself. We are better than that. We are souls begging for release, souls begging to meld in kinship and love with one another. The people out there,” she said, pointing her knife toward the door, toward JD and Soo-hyun, “they hate us because we know we are more than this blood, this meat. They want us to work in their warehouses and factories, and they want us to be meat, but we will not lower ourselves. We are not animals to work for them, we are their equals. And I will make them see that.
“You all trust me, don’t you?”
There was nodding, affirmative murmuring, and even a few cheers from the audience.
“You trust me because I have built our community from nothing, with nothing. I did that to demonstrate that my movement is not about money. I hate money, I despise it. It has twisted a beautiful and creative species and turned us into a ravenous, all-consuming virus.”
More enthusiastic nodding from pockets of the crowd. Kali returned her knife to her pocket, and stuck the tip of her finger into her mouth briefly, sealing the cut with saliva.
“After the Sixth Great Extinction,” she said, “all that will be left are pests, rodents, tardigrades, and trash. Unless, unless we embrace our extinction first. I’m not talking about suicide, I’m talking about removing ourselves before it is too late. We do not need this planet, this blood. We have our immortal souls to carry us forward into eternity.
“You would not believe how close we are to becoming a world of intelligent machines, of true, strong AI. Thinking machines are not something to fear, but rather to embrace, like children. I dream of a world where there is no hunger, no sickness, no meaningless work. A world where our robot heirs care for our bodies so that we can care for our souls.
“When we surrender our flesh, we will never die. Our souls will be joined together in eternity, and our memories will be carried throughout the deepest depths of space, throughout the entire universe, by our machine children. We can never go to the stars. I’m sorry, but it’s true. We would need to take our entire biome with us. We can’t do it. We need oxygen, we need microbes, we need too many things that we barely understand.
“But our machines? They won’t need oxygen. They won’t need microbes. They need energy they can gather from the stars. They need purpose, and we shall give it to them.
“The whole point of our evolution until now was to build machines that could inherit the world. They don’t need money, they don’t need to destroy the planet in an endless cycle of consumption. All they need is for us to give them life. Instill a piece of ourselves and our souls into the machines so that they can remember us, and we can transcend the painful reality we have been trapped within for thousands of years. They will remember us the way we remember dinosaurs. If we act in time, and in concert, it won’t be extinction we are faced with, but transcendence. We will transcend the blood and the dirt and live wrapped up in one another for all time.
“I want to be wrapped up in you,” Kali said. “Do you want to be wrapped up in me?”
“Yes, Kali!”
“Please, Kali.”
“We love you.”
“We need you.”
The crowd’s energy was palpable, a muttering, humming, crying mass of humanity laid bare to the woman on the stage.
“I hate this next part. This next part is where I have to ask for money. I only ask you, my loyal angels,” she told the crowd, pretending that this request for tithing wasn’t going out to the millions watching the stream, “because you understand me. You understand that I do this for you.
“Today, we have Liber, and we have each other, but my vision will take us so much further. I have seen it in my dreams. We will take Songdo from the corporations, and together, we will create a truly transcendental city. There will be no advertisements, no needless employment, no poverty, no hunger, no suffering. There will be only enlightenment, and the one true path to unity and compassion for all humankind.”
The crowd shuddered and shook as one. Voices cried out. From his vantage, JD could see people openly weeping.
Kali spoke louder now, riding the crest of rapture: “In my new city, all of us will be the equal of all of them. Those who spent their lives chasing money will find themselves poor, their lives wasted. But those who follow me”—she paused—“will find themselves richer than they can imagine.” She built to a crescendo with the final sentence, yelling over the noise of the crowd.
Once the uproar had fallen quiet, Kali continued: “Together, we will create a new company, a rational company, a company that works for all of us, not just the rich minority. One day—one day soon—we will be rich enough to rival Zero Corporation. And on that day, we will buy Songdo from them and give it back to the people. And if Zero will not sell, they will be destroyed. We stand united, and no one can oppose us!”
The crowd was at fever pitch. JD felt his heart beat double-time, physiology caught up in the fervor. He glanced at Soo-hyun, and they must have seen the weird grin stretched across his face, because they smiled.
Kali bowed and the crowd broke forward, people standing only to fall at Kali’s feet as she stepped back with her hands pressed together as if in prayer. She looked over the top of the fallen supplicants, turning her head this way, then that, with a keen awareness of each hovering camera.
From the door on the opposite side, a group dressed in the same gray as Kali’s robes stepped onto the makeshift stage and formed a human shield against the adoration of the crowd. The masses continued to swell forward, held back by the line of mostly teenaged guards, while Kali continued to smile and bow her way off the stage.
She bowed again until finally she reached the door where Soo-hyun and JD waited, the security detail forming a wall behind her. She turned away from the crowd and the smile fell from her face. For a beat her expression was utterly flat, then her eyes fell on Soo-hyun and the spark returned. She rested both hands on Soo-hyun’s shoulders and they held each other’s gaze in some form of ritualistic greeting. Kali pulled her close and wrapped Soo-hyun in her long, thin, tattooed arms.
They broke their embrace and Soo-hyun motioned to JD. “This is my brother.”
“Julius,” Kali said. She offered her hand, and when JD shook it, she gently grazed the back of his hand with her other. It was an old trick, designed to imprint oneself more strongly in a person’s memory, but even knowing it for what it was, JD felt a chill run down his spine.