The Bangle Network

Let’s call this ‘Earth’. It is not <i>the</i> Earth, but then that is a very common word to call your home and it’s inhabitants look all but indistinguishable to humans. History went about the same, with some little differences.

Like that brief episode in early medieval times, where a piece of the gods powers fell from the heavens, burning through the local population like a plague and leaving the survivors with a single generation of magic that burned out as fast as it started. No one considers that more than stories nowadays.

They never went to space, the focus of technology lying on virtual worlds instead, on connecting humanity. Warcross was the big thing, a gameworld combining puzzles and agility, translating every language, basic controls given away for free all around the world. No one suspected that this was one mans search for his lost brother, kidnapped as a child. Even less did people suspect that this brother – Sasuke – still lived, only as an AI called Zero in said game, his mind translated over in a first attempt at creating immortality, a cruel experiment that left little of the human he once was.

It went as far as starting an update that’d enable them to mind-control humanity via the NeuroLink, the little brain chip 99% of the world used for ease of access. Only a complicated plan of the best players managed to reach Zero, to restore his human memories, his emotions and convince him to put an end to it all.

Warcross got shut down. No one wanted to risk being mind-controlled by a computer and the friends Sasuke/Zero made didn’t want him to be subject of experiments again. Instead they moved to Antarctica, the rising sea levels causing the formerly ice covered continent to flourish. There they formed a new technological center of the world, a place where Sasuke could thrive in secret, helping run a better society. One that rewarded and punished behavior with virtual points, ranking everyone against each other. It worked better than some other systems.

Elsewhere nations didn’t deal so well with the self-inflicted climate disaster of the Floods. The United States fell apart, resulting in two countries at war – Republic and the Colonies. Time passed, the war continued, everyone Sasuke knew died and he got forgotten. Still, he kept tabs on their families, including over in Republic, where a descendant of Asher Wing had just as much of a tendency to get into trouble as his forefather.

Daniel Wing was about to be executed and he was helpless to do anything about it. No humans left to listen to him, no artificial body to steer himself, not enough of a network to do more than watch and even then the young boy had dropped off his sight more often than he liked, usually reemerging with injuries. In a last attempt at hope Sasuke arranged some things to cast outward. Away from their planet, out into the stars that no one had taken a closer look at in a long while.

Why? He had a hunch. Something in that families history did not quite add up. Over a hundred years were a lot of time to trace family trees and this one had plenty of branches that seemed to appear out of nowhere, traits that reminded him of the experiments done to translate his mind into a computer. Stories that told of… visitors, from out there. Ones that mingled in, hid away when the world decided controlling ones mind was a terrible crime.

But perhaps someone out there was still listening and would care to save this one boy, who might very well be the last to carry this particular genes.