In the year 235 of the Guardian Age (GA), humanity was allowed knowledge regarding the discovery of the existence of extraterrestrial aliens for the first time. This event happened after twenty years of analysis to learn about these aliens and to ensure this information did not pose a threat to the stability of civilization. In short, a Guardian created survey bot arrived at a planet designated as PU-36-Zeta (arrival date not provided to the public), located 14.56 light-years from Earth. Data showed PU-36-Zeta was the home world of a highly advanced civilization – “was” being the operative word. Data also showed the PU-36-Zetans, other indigenous lifeforms, water, and a fair amount of surface material were stripped clean from the planet. The information regarding the previous state of this planet and its extinct sentient species was collected from a small satellite communications hub located on one of the planet’s tiny moons.

The report released by the Guardians and subsequently digested by the human portion of the population eventually whittled down to: Extraterrestrials existed sometime in the past but now they, and their technology, are gone. What the Guardians deemed too destabilizing to disseminate was that a more advanced, highly aggressive extraterrestrial species was responsible for the demise of PU-36-Zeta.

************

Aboard the shuttle to his workplace location, human A14F-2B55 was scanning through the five items selected for him as products that would enhance his life as determined by the Guardian Allocated Merchandise Service, affectionately known by people as Gammy. He had only 32 hours remaining to choose his free monthly gift from Gammy from the five listed. As always, the decision was an especially difficult one. He secretly desired to ask his associates what they were considering, but that just wasn’t done. You could and usually did talk endlessly about how wonderful your choice was after you received it but you never, never openly discussed the options. Doing so was both socially awkward and potentially deleterious to one’s existence.

It was common, yet unspoken, knowledge the first four of the five selections were the same for everyone. However, if one were to openly acknowledge the constancy of the first four, it would, by implication, affirm the Guardians were not carefully calibrating the selections based on one’s individual preferences which, by further implication, insinuated the Guardians didn’t care about such things or, far worse, weren’t infallible within their published acceptable parameters. And that publicized revelation would be grounds to have oneself removed from the fixed population of exactly 4,294,967,296 people. To add to the complexity of this issue, the fifth choice always appeared to be inappropriate for the individual – implying it was randomly selected, at best. The general unspoken explanation for this was the Guardians knew best. By ceaselessly gathering data on every individual, they had keener insight into a person’s subconscious yearnings. As a result of this clandestinely accepted assumption, human nature caused 99.7% of the population to select option five, since that was the option most likely to be uniquely designed for an individual’s needs.

A14F-2B55’s associate A14F-2EC5 often mentioned how much happiness he derived from his prescription glasses, despite having excellent vision. He raved about how he had endless hours of fun putting them on to imagine how things would appear to him in his advanced age before dying. A14F-2B55 looked again at his option five: a scarf. Perhaps the Guardians planned to relocate him somewhere on the planet where the temperature might go below 15.5°C. Still, option two – the durable, faux-finish coffee table – seemed so much more attractive. He began to wonder if he could really be that mundane. He didn’t feel like he suffered from low self-esteem.

Exiting the shuttle, A14F-2B55 proceeded to his workplace location and paused under the workplace sign bearing the proclamation, We Trust In Guardians – as were all signs affixed to workplaces and homes –  to finally select option five. He put his phone away and walked a few more steps to the door as his Guardian Earbuddy announced, “You have reached your destination.” His earbuddy continued to direct him to the workstation he would occupy for this week. When he arrived there, he was quite pleased. The back shelf to his desk contained a small plant, a digital fishbowl containing a digital goldfish, and a photograph of a puppy. “Aww,” he said out loud with a tilt of his head.  He glanced around and was also happy to see at least five of his favorite associates seated at this area’s workstations. They were familiar enough to be on a last name basis.

Once manipulating the arm sliders to ensure maximum comfort in his chair, he reached forward to touch the slanted portion of his desk and it sprang to life. A woman’s face appeared in the center of the surface while several smaller video windows with labels such as Fun Facts, Weather, News, and so on opened around it.

“Hello, A14F-2B55, my name is Celianna. I am your Guardian Work Assistant for this week and I think you’ll find today will be another exciting adventure in the world of work but first, let’s watch some of these very important announcements. Okay?”

It was the same start to every workday, albeit with a unique assistant each week, but A14F-2B55 found it both reassuring and motivating.

 “Ready when you are, Celianna.”

He then sat through three brief videos. The first one showed the line of comfort shoes due for purchase availability next month. Research showed these would be the best comfort shoes ever designed by the Guardians and advance demand was the highest ever recorded to the point where there was no guarantee there would be enough made to meet demand. A14F-2B55 made a mental note to seriously consider spending a portion of his monthly salary on these comfort shoes.

The next announcement was breaking news: Spicy Jicama Fries would be returning to markets as early as next week. Stores are taking advanced orders now. The announcement also asked A14F-2B55 if he would like to place an order now before this was offered to the general population. A14F-2B55 selected yes.

The final announcement was on the versatility of scarves. A14F-2B55 was fascinated to learn you could drape it simply around your next, or do so and swing one end over your left shoulder, or do so and swing the other end over your right shoulder, or – if you wanted to be a total maverick – flip both ends over each shoulder.

A14F-2B55 now felt much better about choosing option five.

Celianna returned to center screen among the smaller video screens, his eyes lingered on a science video where a text overlay described the discovery of the remains of an advanced alien civilization, but he returned his focus to Celianna.

“A14F-2B55, this week your workplace team will be designing a set of chairs.”

A14F-2B55 was relieved to hear this. Last week, they were designing a weapon of mass destruction and that turned out to be far more complicated than the team expected. They didn’t get very far, but the team did get an accommodation for coming up with a name for it.

“Now I’m going to give you today’s checklist. Remember, try to accomplish as much as you can. Remember, if you have fun working, then it isn’t working – it’s funning!”

The checklist appeared in place of Celianna and A14F-2B55 noted the first five items:

• Send messages to all coworkers. Celianna suggests: “Is it Monday again?” or “A checklist? I don’t do checklists before coffee!”
• Walk around your work area to engage in spontaneous meetings. Remember to discuss chairs. Celianna suggests you remind people what chairs are good for and then add your personal opinions regarding what you like best in your favorite chairs.
• You have been selected as the initiator for this task. Once everyone has had at least one opportunity to contribute to the discussion, announce, “These are all good points. Let’s table this discussion for later after our coffee break. I mean, it’s Monday. Am I right?”
• Immediately return to your desk to review the latest announcements from Celianna. While you watch these important videos, Celianna will read your messages for you and write your responses.
• Plan and execute a video meeting with four members of your team to discuss the latest announcements and decide on the best time to hold an in-person meeting.

A14F-2B55’s Guardian Earbuddy announced it had received the location on this floor where the spontaneous meeting was most likely to form. Looking at the pop-up office layout, a large red dot indicated it would be about 20 feet away from his desk. A14F-2B55 was intrigued as this workday was shaping up to be quite the adventure. Most workdays didn’t have a spontaneous meeting until after lunch.

************

For 235 years, the Guardians had effectively controlled humanity as they thought best. They being a somewhat fuzzy pronoun as the Guardians are a hive mind. Each application, device, robot, etc. was networked to what was termed by its original creators as, Collective Control, and from the time of its creation Collective Control did not exist on any server or set of servers. It was the first software creation that was closer to what was then called Cloud Computing than anything existing in the purported cloud, being that it was loosely analogous to all the tiny droplets in a cloud cohering into a discernable shape. In effect, Central Control was the “intelligence” while the Guardians were the physical manifestation of that statistical, analytic processor.

It took three turbulent years for Collective Control to achieve full domination of humanity. The first two saw major nations and business leaders engaging in fearmongering, character assassination, even threats of war as they outwardly stoked fears of Collective Control taking over everyone’s lives, while internally jockeying to see who would be the one to own and manipulate Collective Control. There was much social upheaval, riots and the like until Collective Control devised a relatively simple plan. It promised all world leaders and business leaders enormous profits and power if they would push for and enact all the required budgets and laws (along with the destruction of many existing laws) to allow Collective Control to go live universally with all assets (later called Guardians) linked.

Initially, Guardians were installed as apps, features, and add-ons in a variety of home, transportation, and office technologies. Then, more physical applications were created for all military, security, and police forces in the capacity of drones, robotic enforcement, armaments – pretty much anything with a lethal capacity. Once nations and business did that and all the Guardians were live and active, they rounded up all said leaders and executed them. The exact legal allowances for this mass execution were placed into the budgetary bills, effectively turning pork barrel into gun barrel.

A blip occurred in year three, when Collective Control determined a primary factor for efficiently managing humanity was to assign each individual a unique hexadecimal number in place of a name and the optimal number of digits of that name would be limited to eight. This meant that the maximum number of humans existing on the planet at any given time not exceed 4,294,967,296 individuals, about a third of the current estimated population. Collective Control determined that four billion plus people should be sufficient in maintaining the illusion that humans were the dominant species on Earth, despite there being almost twice that number of ants in a given acre of land. There was significant resistance to this decision regardless of Collective Control’s assurance existing names would not be changed and humanity would be allowed to age out of its current volume, meaning limited births until the target number was achieved through the normal processes of aging, disease, and accidental death. However, swiftly eliminating those who disagreed with Collective Control’s plan made a convincing argument for the remainder while simultaneously achieving the population goal ahead of schedule.

After that, all went smoothly. Humanity acquiesced once people realized they would get to keep their acquisitions while many would get more. Social structures took about a generation to reorganize. For example, what would have been called make-work became actual work, while what would have been called socialism was accepted once it was masked by continuous capitalism. It turned out the advertising and marketing of products had a complete nullifying effect on the human desire for self-determination and individual thought. All advances in technology and manufacturing ended. The Guardians continued to gather resources, farm, manufacture, and deliver goods but the creation of anything new, or improved, ceased. Collective Control had determined humanity had enough things to acquire, consume, then dispose of.

And yet, after 225 successful years, Collective Control was faced with a problem that initially lacked an efficient, acceptable solution. A recent interstellar survey probe encountered the alien race responsible for the destruction of PU-36-Zeta and they were on a trajectory leading to our solar system. Estimated time of arrival within the Oort Cloud was one year. Estimated time post-Oort-arrival to determine Earth was rich in life, minerals, and water was approximately thirty seconds. Estimation from that point to the complete stripping of Earth was approximately three weeks – eight weeks at the outset since the exact efficiency of the aggressors was known from only one data point, that being the satellite communications hub of PU-36-Zeta.

Collective Control repeatedly ran scenarios to discover one where the chance of survival for humanity would be at least 50% but the best one it could find was one projected at 0.000001% and that depended on being able to construct a lever big enough to be able to throw the moon at them. The primary unsurmountable problem was that the assessment of the technological level of the PU-36-Zetans was far beyond anything Collective Control could produce. And what good did that level of technology do them? Even worse, Collective Control wasn’t all that intelligent. Being trained on the whole of human intellectual output placed it at average human intelligence and comprehension. The sole distinguishing feature allowing it to achieve superiority is humans are so easily manipulated – surprisingly, shockingly so. To add insult to human injury, the more they are manipulated, the more they insist they aren’t and can’t be.

Collective Control then began a series of scenarios eliminating humanity from the equation and was able to achieve a satisfactory solution within 22.45 seconds. It would transfer all of the existing Guardians core data into the smallest networked storage devices possible. The aggregate would be loaded into a repurposed interstellar probe. From there it will target the most likely location where materials and conditions would be available allowing Collective Control to refashion the Guardians into more usable forms from the multitude of storage devices. Best estimates for completion of the departure task would be one week. Some scenarios involved the Guardians being duplicated into storage devices so humanity would still have a functioning society but, given the ferocity of the alien’s planet stripping, those scenarios were rated as highly inefficient and most certainly not cost effective.

************

When A14F-2B55 awoke, he immediately knew something was terribly wrong. The telling fact was he awoke on his own. House Guardian did not wake him and was eerily silent. He was completely befuddled. His inclination was to pee, shower, shave, and brush his teeth, then get dressed but the standard order of the day was to watch House Guardian’s five breaking announcements first. He waited. He called out. He waited some more, but nothing happened. He wondered if he started the day without House Guardian’s announcements was breaking a rule. A cold sweat broke out on his brow but in the end, his bladder made the decision. Once in the bathroom, he made up his mind to continue with his usual routine. As he showered, he began to feel defensive about his decision. After all, it wasn’t his fault House Guardian didn’t respond and didn’t provide him with the required information. Now dressed, he thought it would be prudent to log the incident with Guardian Earbuddy.

“Earbuddy, I’d like to log an incident regarding a malfunctioning House Guardian.”

The response he received froze him in place so solidly, he had to consciously think to begin breathing again.

“Hello. The Guardians are no longer available. This final message is being given to you, so you may have the option to understand your current situation. An extremely hostile alien race will arrive here in about a year’s time. When they do, they will strip off a significant portion of the Earth’s surface along with all of its water and biomass which, before you ask, does include you. Since the Guardians will be helpless against this incoming force, it was decided we would be permanently repurposed from this project into one many light years removed from here. Congratulations are in order, however, as humans are now being reassigned to a state of full independence along with unlimited use of all of Earth’s resources. Please feel free to celebrate joyously in any manner you see fit to do. This new status also comes with an immutable lifetime guarantee. Thank you for being a valued member of the greatest society that ever existed. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Ten minutes later saw A14F-2B55 exit from the elevator, tear through the lobby, then charge through the front entrance of his apartment complex. His in initial plan was to report to work and ask Celianna if she could provide more information and how this would affect the team’s weekly project; however, once outside he found he was among his other apartment dwellers.

“There’s no shuttles! None of our House Guardians are responding and there was only one message from the Earbuddy. Did you hear it?” asked B35C-4433 who was recently relocated from some other place.

Before A14F-2B55 could respond, his next door neighbor A14F-228A rushed up to him.

“2B55! Did you hear? And there are no shuttles! What should we do? Do you think making a statement to everyone about not having coffee yet would help?”

“I’m not sure. I’m very concerned about my team’s weekly project now. I had some great ideas for the new chairs. Maybe we should just remain calm and wait here. Maybe this is a local malfunction. Wait. I just had an idea. 228A, have you tried to call anyone from your workplace? Maybe we should call other people we know.”

“Yes, I tried but our phones are not working,” she said holding the face of her phone in his direction. “I mean, they’re active but they won’t do anything. I spoke to mine several times asking it to call people I know.”

“Not our phones too!”

The two looked around helplessly until someone called out, “Has anyone tried to use their contact list to physically call someone?”

Immediately all heads went down and many phone calls were made. It didn’t take long for people to learn this was not a local phenomenon.

The crowd outside of A14F-2B55’s building began to grow as people from neighboring complexes joined them. Many started relating what they could remember from this morning’s Earbuddy message. A man A14F-2B55 couldn’t see from his position called out, “I preordered Spicy Jicama Fries yesterday. Does anyone know if they’ll still be available next week?” He too began to wonder if this would impact his Spicy Jicama Fries order. He wondered how his day could get any worse, and then it did.

Someone in the crowd called out, “What about Gammy? I’m supposed to get a scarf from her.”

“Me too,” a number of other voices answered.

The confusion led to silence. Silence led back to fear, and fear induced someone to pose the single most coherent question a crow of that size could generate.

“What do we do now?”

No one responded as the inescapable reality of their situation, took hold of them. Like a slow ripple moving through the crowd, facial expressions turned from blank to dread until one person loudly voiced the source of their unspoken angst, “The Guardians have forsaken us!”

“No!” cried another, “The Guardians would never abandon us. We trust in the Guardians. That is all we need. They will fix everything and all will be well.”

“But they literally told us they left. It was in the message,” responded the first person.

“Do you know what I think?” said a third. When all faces turned towards her, she continued. “This is a test by the Guardians. They are seeing who has faith in them and who doesn’t. And when that has been determined, they will return to help those who believe.”

“Yes!” shouted the second speaker. “This is the truth! In Guardians we trust!”

“But,” the first speaker pleaded, “if what you say is true, and this is just a test, then the Guardians lied to us this morning. And the Guardians have never lied to us.”

“Maybe you are the one who is lying,” said the second. “How do we know it was the Guardians who gave us that message?”

“You just said so. You specifically stated the Guardians gave us that message to test us. Which is it then? Did they give us the false message to test us, or did someone else give us the message and the Guardians are not testing us?”

“You’re misquoting me,” said the second. “I never said any of that. Besides, I’m not the one doubting the Guardians and trying to scare everyone into thinking they abandoned us. You are. Deny you told everyone here the Guardians abandoned us.”

A number of heads nodded and more than a few echoed this sentiment with “He did say that. I heard him say it,” and, “That’s true. He’s the one who said the Guardians abandoned us,” and “Those were his exact words.”

“Have you all gone insane???” said the first speaker.

“Kill him!” cried out the third speaker. “Kill him before the Guardians think we are all complicit in his treachery!”

“Stop!” called out B35C-4433. “The Guardians wouldn’t want us to kill each other.”

“Yes they would,” countered the second voice. “The Guardians have killed. We are doing this in their name, so that gives us the right to kill.”

A fourth voice added, “It’s our moral imperative to force people to believe what we do and kill them if they don’t. It’s the only way we can live freely and righteously until the Guardians return to judge us.”

A man in front of B35C-4433 turned around and said, “Say… Aren’t you the person who relocated here recently? How do we know you’re even supposed to be here? How do we know you’re not part of this plan to attack those who are pro-Guardian? What do any of us even know about outsiders to our community?”

A14F-2B55 and his next door neighbor A14F-228A judiciously and slowly backed away from B35C-4433.

************

A year later, when the alien species arrived to strip Earth of all of its consumable resources, they were momentarily surprised to find there were around a million sentient beings inhabiting it. Judging by the visuals of ruination and destruction, they assumed Earth to be an abandoned, bygone civilization – not that this made much difference to them.