“To the voice reading this, you should know that curiosity didn’t kill the cat—we are on a search for humanity.”

We heard it before we saw it—a force with the brightest blue, challenging the light spectrum. Something strange disrupted the brown sky and the pods we called home. Just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished, leaving us with the mundane image of Monday morning life at Dev, Prototype.

Imaginations can be tricky, especially when you live in a world born out of one. The quiet buzz of street pads hummed along the axis of the express. Daily commuters holographed into their 9-5s, kids logged in for their daily knowledge check, and house bots uploaded their to-do lists.

It was just another Monday morning—except for the brief anomaly. But like everything else unusual, it was dismissed by the daily informational news on Rebel factions and the Age Timers.

Stuck in my little world of doubt, I returned to my knowledge update class, trying to ignore the aching visions that plagued me. My mother once whispered at the dinner table about a time when she had to use a device called a smartphone to communicate with my father. I let my mind drift, wondering how a single device could transmit radio signals.

Then again, she spoke of a time that seemed invisible from memory, and my days of pondering always left me with unanswered questions. Each time I probed my search engine, I met a knowledge block. But I remember my mother’s words:

“It is okay to have questions. The world is simply the curiosity of a genius.”

If she weren’t an AI engineer, I would call her a scripter. That’s what we call people who have retained the ability to create worlds with words. They are the best entertainers—far beyond the abilities of my Mobiboy.

One short, warm Saturday morning—though it should have been winter—I was lost in my holographic design project when I stumbled upon a perplexing question:

“What is faster than the speed of light?”

I hesitated. My peers on the audio end were just as confused. A small chaos erupted as the AI home tutor returned the same response: 404 ERROR. It corrected the module, but no answer sufficed. Every input led to a negative value.

The question echoed across every pod. Tension spread. The entire system seemed to stutter beneath the weight of this inquiry.

Then, through the glitch, something materialized. A figure of heroic nature took human form.

Recognition struck like lightning the moment he spoke.

“Desire.”

Written by Best Ashley

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