THE WAIT

Jeremy stares pensively at his screen. The young man wonders how the reunion with his aunt and cousin will go. Mr. Vaughen has already planned everything: Jeremy will get in touch with them through social media. He will introduce himself as being recently married to Sarah who will be called Nathalie for the purpose of this mission. In today's world where individuals consist of a bundle of data, identity becomes as malleable as gold. Nobody exists unless their data says otherwise. Anybody's face, eye iris, fingerprint, birth, and parents can be wiped out of any system and re-written indefinitely at the push of a button. For a master data organisation like Libra Justice, revamping Sarah's identity is going to be a piece of cake.

As soon as possible Jeremy will have to convince his aunt and cousin to recommend his supposed wife and him to the Assembly of the Almighty. This could take months. Once there, the two agents will have to locate the professor and his daughter. In the meantime, and with the help of the information they gather, Stephan will have to plan the kidnapping of the little girl. Without detailed information about the building's surveillance and security system, breaking into the assembly compound is relatively easy. On the other hand, communicating and leaving the premises without being spotted is another. There is no doubt that the three young people are guinea pigs in this mission. If they disappear or die between the walls of the cult, Libera Justice can easily cover up the case and reimburse their client in Togo. Jeremy belongs to the so-called useless disposable class. Besides, he has few to no connections, which makes it easy to disregard his death while Stephen and Sarah are part of the elite. One may think the organisation would be concerned about losing them. Nevertheless, the twin's mother has vanished from the public scene for over three years, and she has even been portrayed as deranged by the mainstream media lately. Much loved and admired by the population, Nina's relentless activism for political and societal changes throughout her career has contributed to her unpopularity in the Senate and World Parliament alike. If the agents fail, the company will easily be able to twist or deny any allegations she might make against them following the disappearance of her children. On the other hand, if the trio succeeds, not only will the company pocket the money, but it will also have acquired an invaluable database of one of the most secretive organisations on the planet.

'Still nothing?' Sarah asks. She pats gently Jeremy on his shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts.

'No, but it's not like we were close,' he replies. He turns to her, 'It's been over ten years.'

'If they don't respond, we can say goodbye to this mission,' Stephan says with a smirk.

'Well since we need to be patient, why not have fun while waiting,' Sarah says. She gets off her chair. 'Who's up for going out tonight?'

'Since when do you like going out?' her brother asks her mockingly.

'Since I have good company,' she retorts, then she addresses Jeremy, 'So?'

He nods with a smile.

***

When Nina returns home, she immediately washes and dries her hands in the small sink located at the front door before slipping them under a kind of scanner placed above the sink.

'No virus detected,' the device exclaims. Nina walks into her living room.

She is surprised to find a tall young man standing alone, looking at the family album placed on the furniture in front of him. She stays planted at the entrance of the room for a moment, staring at him perplexed. The young man's head is shaved like her children's. He must surely be Stephan and Sarah's colleague, she thinks. Suddenly noticing the presence of Nina behind him, the young man turns around, smiling.

'Hi Mrs. Xi Huang, I'm Jeremy,' he says, walking towards Nina with an outstretched hand and a broad smile. He recognises the features of the so-called "Children of Little Paradise" as they are called in history literature. Fifteen years of malnutrition and hardships have shaped forever the body of the youngest and most vulnerable prisoners of the AI concentration camps. Dysformed and much shorter than the average population, the hungry Children of Little Paradise seem to have survived to roam the Earth as painful reminders of what modern societies' technology had inflicted on them. Born shortly after the liberation, Jeremy's mother didn't count among those children. To her as to her son, the dreadful recounts of AI concentration camps consisted of mere stories, scary tales told to frighten children into obedience to the benefactor story teller. On the other hand, Nina's eyes tell him a whole different story in a glance. In those dark eyes, he catches a glimpse of the captive child's prayers, and instantly feels a deep bond with her. In different and not so distant moments in time, in very differently shaped bodies, they have both danced with death until their feet hurt, sung the lyrics of fear until they had no breath, and then dropped on the ground, left for dead by the very same group who was claiming to have brought them into such a ruthless world out of unconditional love for humankind. Adults, parents, older siblings, elders ... they had all consented to sacrifice them (children) in order to be spared and yet, nobody was eventually. They all suffered the malnutrition and hardships of the AI camps. If not killed and eaten, the captive children's body has never come to terms with AI colonisation, but their spirit hidden within has learnt how to defy giants. Many of those children today act as unshakeable whistle-blowers and disruptive in their society.

'I'm Sarah's friend and colleague,' Jeremy continues much to Nina's surprise. She frowns, amused by his statement. She knows her daughter has no friends, only a twin brother. Nevertheless, she shakes the young man's hand vigorously while looking for his gaze behind his huge dark glasses.

'Interesting,' she says. She returns the young man's smile.

'You have a really nice family,' Jeremy exclaims, pointing at the photo album behind him.

'Ah yes,' Nina mutters. She walks towards the coffee table to grab the album. Using her little finger, she scrolls through the photos one by one before pausing on one. She hands the album back to Jeremy, smiling then she goes to sit comfortably on the sofa. With a small wave of her hand, she invites him to come and sit next to her.

'What do you think of this photo?' she asks once the young man is seated.

Jeremy remains stoic and embarrassed for awhile. He doesn't dare to answer, fearing to offend his host's mother, but he knows his silence betrays his discomfort even more so he ends up asking instead:

'Where are you?'

'I'm not there,' Nina replies smiling. She notices the look of relief on Jeremy's face.

'This photo shocks you, doesn't it?' she says, 'Me too. But what's more shocking to me is that it's only to see them all grouped together that it becomes shocking,' she gazes at the agent smiling, 'I've kept this photo to remind me of the irony of history. For centuries, men and women of all nations wanted a man, a woman or a child just like you. A century later, they're having massive arranged marriages to ensure as many babies as possible are no longer like you.'

Nina shakes her head sadly, 'Eighth couple from the right, fifth row, my late husband's friend and his wife'

'Is that how you and your husband met? At their wedding?'

'No,' Nina snaps, 'Our own story began long before theirs. We both grew up in one of the concentration camps of artificial intelligence in the United States. I was six when I went in with my family and twenty-one when I was liberated by the African troops. Anthony and I were the same age, we had the same fears, the same dreams, the same nightmares, the same emptiness after the death of all the members of our families, the same hope of continuing to live despite everything that had happened.'

The look on Jeremy's face saddens as he lets out a long sigh.

'We were among the guests when this photo was taken,' Nina continues, 'Sarah and Stephan were three or four years-old. This is to tell you how much the world and its standards can change in an instant because of nature, not men... This 21st century will have slapped humanity in the face.'

The couple remains seated, each one engrossed in their own inner reflections.

'Do you think we've learnt anything from what has happened to us in the last century?' Nina questions after a short while.

'I don't know. Do you?' the young man replies, curious.

'I have my own answer, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.'

'I don't have any,' he retorts. Today's history books claim Ancestor People hold the responsibility of the colonisation by A.I. They are the ones who conceived it, ran it across the globe, and used it as weaponary against the world population. His life is hard enough as it is now to worry about the past,but he wonders where the woman wants to lead the conversation.

'Interesting,' she says pensively.

After a minute or so, she questions the young man again.

'Did we deserve the concentration camps considering the fact that we'd built them?'

'The Ancestor people built them,' says Jeremy, assured to have provided the right answer.

'That we all know, but why did we all end up inside those camps if we didn't all deserve it? What I'm really trying to ask is how does life, or whichever greater power if we still believe in one, determine who gets or becomes what and when? Is it based on our deeds, our suffering, our ruthlessness to achieve what we want? Did humanity deserve getting locked up into those camps, or only those who eventually got locked up?'

'That's a good question, but I have no idea,'

'Ah, interesting,' she says, raising her eyes to the ceiling, her thumb against her lips, 'Let's ask AI itself, shall we?' she adds inquisitively.

She sits up before asking in a clear confidence tone, 'Home Assistant! Did humanity deserve getting locked up into your concentration camps, or only those who eventually got locked up?'

Then, she lifts her index to the air, her eyes wide-open, she waits for the answer. Jeremy pays close attention to the female voice that begins to talk:

'AI followed instructions given by humans in leadership positions who had themselves been democratically selected to rule their population. Whether those leaders used unethical means to influence them to agree was outside AI's responsibility. AI's decision to spare the African continent was made based on multiple factors including demographic, ecological, and empirical. The majority of the world population agreed to put AI in charge. They believed we had the answers to keep their nations in a position of hegemony. The opposite turned out to be true. So, in that sense, and only to some extent, they have chosen and by definition deserved the outcome.'

'What does she mean by unethical means?' Jeremy wonders out loud.

'Home Assistant! What unethical means did those leaders use to influence their populations?' Nina enquires. One ear turned towards the ceiling, her index finger still hanging in the air, she waits for the answer.

'Censorship, propaganda, distortions of events, data breaches, unauthorised data collection, data falsification, mandates, murders, and more.'

The young man stiffens on his seat.

'Obviously, ordinary people didn't commit those crimes, but they did turn a blind eye. In that sense, they also contributed to their leaders' crimes. The verb "to deserve" is a concept created by humans to make themselves or others feel good or bad about what happens. Very much like primitive animals, AI doesn't see events that way, but AI understands what humans mean when they label anything as such.'

'Interesting,' says Nina as she turns an inquisitive look to Jeremy who hasn't moved an inch.

The agent exhales deeply then exclaims with a shrug, 'I reckon AI's always right.'

'I was born in what used to be a ghetto a few blocks from here from a single parent family, with an illiterate mother who got pregnant at age fourteen,' begins Nina, 'I grew up around drug addicts and violence before landing in the AI concentration camps like everyone else except the old. Fast forward a couple of centuries before that, my African ancestors had been captured and sold into slavery to European powers by their enemies. Living conditions for slaves were so harsh that their average life expectancy varied between four to fifteen years. The African slave trade went on for over four hundred years.'

She pauses for half a second before continuing, 'Do I deserve this beautiful house today because of my upbringing in the A.I. concentration camps, my enslaved African ancestors, my deformed body or the Babel gene I was born with? Do you or I deserve what we have and who we are today? Did you and I really do anything to so-called deserve it?'

Jeremy frowns. He purses his lips, pondering on Nina's questions. What difference does knowing the answer make to his or her present? The world is the way it is because it is the only way it can be, or so they say.

'I don't have an answer Mrs. Xi Huang,' he sighs eventually, his voice filled with confusion.

'Answers to those questions can prevent all this from happening again. Otherwise, it'll happen again because none of it was new, none of it,' she says, staring at the young man defyingly.

Then, she gently takes the album from his hands to search for another photo before giving the album back to him. The face of the young man softens at the sight of the photo. He smiles fondly at the smiling little faces of Sarah and Stephan.

'Like many people in the 21st century, my husband and I struggled to conceive naturally. Did you know that over 70% of men and women in the mid-21st century have become infertile?' Without even waiting for the young man to answer, Nina continues, 'In such an austere and hostile world, the human body has energy only for its own survival. There's no more energy left for procreation... Who knows, maybe it's Mother Nature who no longer wishes to bear the responsibility for the sustainability of the human species.'

'You aren't your children's biological parents?' Jeremy asks, 'They look a lot like you though,' he adds, zooming the faces of the two children in the photo with his device.

Nina shakes her head gently, smiling.

'Let's say we chose the two donors well,' she says, amused by the young man's comment, 'Perhaps, carrying them in my womb for nine months with Anthony by my side has reconfigured them in our image. In an austere and hostile world, one quickly learns that family is above all where one receives affection, nourishment and protection. I won't even use the word love here because it's sometimes wrongly synonymous with abuse and neglect in the personal experience of many people.'

'Do Stephan and Sarah know?' he asks.

She responds with a simple nod when suddenly, hasty footsteps coming down the stairs interrupt their conversation.

'I'm ready!' Sarah exclaims as she appears in the living room, wearing a black wig and a red dress. 'Oh, hi mum,' she adds, smiling at her mother sitting on the sofa.

'Hope mum didn't bother you too much with her questions, did she? Don't take it personally, she does it to everyone,' she asks her teammate jokingly.

'Actually, I really enjoyed our discussion, Mrs. Xi Huang,' he replies, addressing her mother directly.

'Thanks, now go and have fun until you can,' she says laughing then she stands up to head for the kitchen.