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The Ultimate Destiny of Mankind

Tom Ball

    As it turned out (and it had to turn out this way), everyone was a hedonist these days and addicted to neo-opiates (strong ones). The people were all completely out of it, all the time.
    As I dreamt I was reminded of what a certain girl told me, “That it was a fine line between total pleasure and death. Most of us were in a dreamer’s coma. And even if they awoke, they wouldn’t remember, much, just echoes of pleasure.”
    Some people were programmed to awake at certain times, even agreeing on rendez-vous with others. I awoke with the girl and we decided we needed to effect change.
    I said, “It’s always been a World in which everyone struggles for comfort of their mind.
    It is just that comfort for your mind varied between individuals.”
    Those out of it on opiates were typically immersed in Virtual Reality and had love and friendship with the holograms there. But some Virtual Worlds were dangerous and if one died in Virtual Reality, you were irrevocably dead, and the janitor robots would take your body and cremate it.
    I was advocating to live in Reality, but the Virtual masters said all must take our drugs and experience VR. But finally, I broke free and found that only a few dozen had done the same. We worked on science projects such as how to get eternal youth without being in a coma. And we had a commune in which it was free love, and that was enough pleasure for us. It seemed so natural and good. And babies were born.
    But some of our group said sex and other instincts were mindless and we have to move beyond them, to be truly free spirits.
    I said, “Surely there are higher states of being such as true love and successful science and art and business, which give euphoria. Such euphoria is different than neo-opiates and I feel is more concrete and real. The ecstasy of the dreamers is just mind numbing.”
    And I said, “We have to ban neo-opiates and force people to return to Reality. A dictator is needed.”
    Our few dozen in the commune were all ready to help me to rule. We all felt we had dodged a bullet of bliss. And now were free humans.
    We took out the VR masters and then slowly weaned people off the drugs. And surprisingly we were successful. The system was built on weakness, not strength.
    But as the years went by, many people became alcoholics and were talking about comfort for their mind again.
    And there were black markets for neo-opiates which were hard for us to stop. And finally, dictator, Xaveria ——, took power and put everyone back on opiates and in Virtual Reality.
    Everyone had to take the drugs and this time no one escaped. And Xaveria ——, was on the drugs too. Robots made sure no one woke up from the dreams.
    It was our destiny.

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