A hero

 

Edward-Henry Chatel-Grafton took a deep breath. He had to give his report to the commission that had hired him two years earlier.

In this assembly were the most powerful individuals on the planet, including some members of the reptilian families. Edward belonged to one of the most influential families in the Chelsea area, but he wouldn't mess with any of them.

The mission he was on was an uncomfortable one. Humanity had stabilized at just under a billion people, but nothing was working. The survivors were facing a suicidal spiral, in a world of scarcity, violence and abandonment.

Edward had delivered a synthesis report of more than 500 pages. Now he had to propose, orally, concrete measures for recovery.

If he produced cautious and useless work, he would be immediately banned; if he was irreverent, he would be physically eliminated...

He began:  "The second quarter of the 21st century has been marked by a rapid increase in unemployment around the world. This has led to considerable political and cultural upheaval. New technological and automation advances have destroyed work."

Edward paused, looked up briefly at the assembly. They were looking at him sternly; bad point. He continued, "Employees disappeared first in the West. The impact of machines and intelligent software programs have overtaken humans. Blue collar workers suffered the brunt of the layoffs first, white collar jobs soon followed."

Edward knew he had to move on, he read quickly, "Advanced robotics, algorithms, networks, bandwidth, voice and facial recognition have pushed people out of work.

Autonomous vehicles have led to the disappearance of highway cafes and motels. With humans totaling a third of operating costs on their salaries alone, you've done without them, their training, their sleep, their pensions, their health insurance, their vacations. Machines don't drink alcohol, don't look at their cell phones..."

A few laughs comforted Edward, who had dared a "you" that could have been considered accusatory. These men and women had programmed the end of humanity. Apparently, they had.

He continued, "Robots, like the first 'Baxter', developed by Rethink Robotics, understood their environment perfectly. For only a few dollars, these robots, and their successors, took over the delivery, sales and manufacturing functions of humans.

Aerospace, agriculture, cleaning, drone deliveries, nursing homes, hospitals, hotels, kitchens, warfare, mining, retail, security patrols also dispensed with humans.

Holographic representations replaced humans in reception jobs. Soon, self-service, home-prepared and home-delivered meals and drinks were automated. Medical robots, like Watson 41, are our last family doctors. Even our sex workers are Borg!!!"

Edward heard some quiet laughter, but now he had to get to the concrete proposals.

"I can see that you don't want me to continue to enumerate the mutations that have taken place for more than a century. You're waiting for ideas, a miracle, I don't know."

Edward looked up from his screen and looked defiantly, slowly, at all the individuals in this assembly. Now his fate was at stake: "The dreaded unemployment crisis never happened. You did not allow it.

All to your hope of the arrival of a messiah, you have committed your life, your soul, to an ideal. Where is your ideal? The athletes that you have sent to the stars, the territories of your supposed ancestors, have not returned, caught up in the immensity, in the infinite. Machines are not enough to understand astral travel, ladies and gentlemen. You have failed.

A few large-scale continental wars, intense waves of biological attacks and the passive sterilization of the population have certainly eradicated the population." This time he avoided pointing to the assembly. A direct accusation of murder, even a well-founded one, was a glass ceiling not to be broken immediately.

"You have, today, a few hundred thousand pitiful, lobotomized individuals who more or less actively assist you in household chores,. You may employ a few sex slaves, the only ones who still amaze you, and that's all.

A few million other individuals are exhausted on farms and a few holdings whose location you barely know. All these populations are exhausted by the sedatives, the various chemistries that you inject into them so that they last a little.

But life is dead. These individuals are, almost overwhelmingly, sterile. They have no hope, no joy. They survive."

"We are all in the same boat. We have a world population reduced to a quasi-vegetative state by the use of multiple alienating techniques."

Edward-Henry paused. He looked down at the floor, "Would you like me to continue and give you my conclusion, or would you like me to refrain?"

Clearly, the people consulted each other. Edward finally heard, "Proceed.

"I must come to the painful conclusion that the world you have created is a failure. You are humans, of noble descent no doubt, but humans. You need, we need, others to hope to survive.

Life, today, is beyond our borders, in those small territories where scum survive by their means, without comfort, but in solidarity and the trials of nature. There is the dynamism, the affection, the tenderness that our civilization no longer knows. There lies the future... "

Edward-Henry Chatel-Grafton was rudely interrupted. A security man rudely led him to the exit. 

He disappeared a few minutes later. All of his family members were eliminated, some close friends as well, despite the notable efforts of the British intelligentsia to save these unfortunate and influent people. The order came from on high.

No trace of a dissident group, of any organization around Edward-Henry Chatel Grafton, was found, despite all the diligent investigative efforts. He was simply one of the very last heroes, perfectly anonymous, who had rebelled against the Satanist empire over humanity.