It would be fair to say that there was most probably one person, and one person only in the entire universe that looked upon the Citadel of NuMort and believed it to be the pinnacle achievement of human civilisation. Most people living on the planet Beta Pictoris V (upon which the citadel was considered the capital city), regarded it with indifference, if indeed, they registered its existence at all. The Learners who lived within its walls considered it rather negatively. To them it was an ugly edifice; a symbol of architecture from a time long since passed and probably best forgotten. However, to that one person who saw it differently the citadel appeared to them the most beautiful and elegant of urban landscapes. That person was Laurena Tyall and this is the story of how she came to see the world differently because of a question no one else had thought to ask for two hundred years. Or at least, so she had believed.
Let us begin then with the Citadel of NuMort which, for a long time, was seen by Laurena as a place of pomposity and hypocrisy. The citadel was organised into three segmented regions, each hosting five equally sized spired structures that towered skyward and sparkled whenever sunlight reflected on their glass frames. The symmetrical design of each column reflected particles natural to the planets’ atmosphere producing a warming orange glow which regularly crisscrossed from building to building and, at certain times of the year, when the sun was at the right height and the clouds and dust particles were at their minimum, erupted and fractured into a multi-coloured light show that would spread out across the urban sprawl covering the nearby town of Kar’mot in a shower of reds, blues and greens.
The citadel itself was surrounded by a tall wall and a large elegant gate. There was only one way in and one way out and at all times it was guarded. Once upon a time at least, this was seen as a necessary precaution as NuMort was home to the most important object on the entire planet; the Local Interface Hub. These days though, the wall and its gate were considered little more than a formality. Nothing much of interest ever happened here.
Technology had long ago reached the point where learning was no longer necessary or even desirable within the human population. A life could be lived, and lived well with only the very basic cognitive tuition having been applied; the rest could be digested as and when needed via the Interface that provided direct access to the entire repository of human knowledge.
The capability to beam knowledge directly into the brain at whim or command had evolved humanity into a new species. There was no longer need for jobs or travel as the machines controlled by the collective brain power of the human race could take care of everything. Most humans spent the majority of their time immersed in virtual realities or jumping from one piece of information to the next; allowing their own brains to bulge with facts and figures. Laws, backed up by computerised protocols, however, forbid total immersion in order to avoid humanity losing itself entirely in pretended or informational worlds. That time spent away from the Interface might be spent in social habitats - humans still enjoyed talking, playing games, eating, and having sex. As a race, however, humanity had become static and evolutionarily stilted.
The Learners, who were the sole residents of the citadel, led a life of sacrifice and guardianship. Sacrifice because they segmented themselves away from the harmony and peace provided by the Interface that was otherwise to be considered a right for all humanity to share and participate. But they were also guardians because it was their role to protect and maintain the great machine on the people’s behalf. They were the guarantee that the ideal life humanity had finally pulled up around themselves would continue uninterrupted and indefinite.
But what was life like outside the citadel? Other than the Learners themselves there was only one person who could answer that question, indeed only one person who could even conceive of the thought that would lead to the question and who could then join together the facts to form an answer. That person was Laurena Tyall.
Laurena was a young woman, perhaps nineteen or twenty years old, and she had spent her entire life in the town of Kar’mot. The town was nothing special. It lay in the shadows of the citadel and was principally formed by four Social Hubs interconnected with personal living spaces and a few outlying structures. Laurena knew nothing different, at least, not of the real world. There had never been any need to travel outside of the town limits. Indeed, the population of Kar’mot rarely deviated from their standard routes through the town. Day after day they would each take the same route to the same places. Laurena was no different in this regard. She had walked to the same social hub every day for the entirety of her life. It had simply never crossed her mind to do otherwise.
Laurena had nonetheless always been somewhat of an oddity, having not favoured the lures of the Interface even at an early age. She did, of course, use it constantly – only breaking for the regulated ‘social time’, but her experiences within the virtual landscapes seemed to pale to those of the real world. Somehow, and for some reason (Laurena had taken her entire life to work it out) there was something lacking about a life spent indulging only her minds desires.
In this perception Laurena was truly unique. The Interface offered everyone else the life they desired the most. Reality was seen as a pale imitation of what their minds could produce. And how could it be otherwise? The Interface gave manifest every ounce of imagination capable. Time could be spent in any number of imaginary worlds. Every need could be met. A life of luxury could be lived in any number of ways, as could adventures or explorations. It was possible, for example, to transform one’s body into any number of things. A man could play a woman and vice-a-versa; a day could be spent as an animal (real or imagined). Any sport could be played or adventure created and acted out. Rest could be found on the most amazing beaches imaginable, whilst the most breath-taking landscape could be viewed and explored at whim. The Interface offered anything that could be wanted, needed or imagined.
This life had slowly begun to change for Laurena. It took a long time for her to make a life-transforming decision. At first she had simply begun to increase her regulated social time, slowly reducing her time spent under the control of the Interface. Initially Laurena had no idea why she was doing this; but it had seemed right for her. Over time thoughts had begun to enter her head about why she was spending more time in the real world; what was driving her away from the Interface? That question still bothered her, although now it had been several years since she had made a fateful decision to reject the machine entirely. At which point her life was changed irrevocably and dramatically.