One of our researchers went rogue recently, unprecedented really. Somehow a certain shadowy coalition of self-styled elites we shall refrain from naming established a line of communication with them and plied them with promises of great wealth and, I suspect this was the more compelling argument, immortality.
In previous entries you may recall I have mentioned what the official stance on immortality is at Arketer Labs. We don't pursue it. It is certain to result in stagnation, a breakdown of the social contract, elites with delusions of Godhood- and that's just some of the middle-ground scenarios. Immortality for all means a population crisis in short order, starvation, the utter depletion of natural resources...
In short, about the only form of immortality that is theoretically not disastrous across the board is digitization, if that could be said to be anything but creating Artificial Intelligences with the idea they were once human.
Immortality is a dead end, perhaps ironically. Strictly speaking it's not even possible. Our universe is far too dangerous for that to be the case.
Still, the lure of at least indefinite mortal life is a powerful one. Odds are it will be invented at some point. The book of Revelation in the Christian Bible hints that such a thing has at least been imagined in human culture for a long time.
"During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them."
Of course, this is out of context dramatically and furthermore comes from the book of the bible that reads a bit like it was written by Hunter S. Thompson on a particularly bad LSD trip.
And the horses had faces of men but I wasn't wearing pants and then there was the Archangel Gabriel who looked alarming like my great-grandmother and called me a wussyboy. Lo.
Still, it does aptly describe what would ultimately become of immortals.
The lure of immortality however deleterious and hollow a thing it may be in practice is again a powerful one all the same. This is proven by the existence of Calico Labs, founded by Google and the perhaps less reputable but more immediately useful Alcor Life Extension Foundation, for freezing your brain should future super-scientists feel inclined to go out of their way to popping it into a new and deathless body.
Neither of these entities had any hand in what lured the researcher into going rogue. The researcher themselves was involved in our work with cloning, all such research pointedly away from anything along the lines of becoming a Clonus Horror situation.
This researcher, nevertheless, apparently was rather keen on the idea of either transferring their consciousness or, failing the sufficient development of a technology that would allow that, perhaps just popping their brain into a new, younger body when their age advanced beyond their liking.
And so, with considerable outside help, they have breached contract, trust and all manner of good judgement to vanish, with outside help and entirely too much of our research data.
#0, as you can imagine, is livid- but not with me for once, so there is a bright side to everything.
Now, in a situation like this many would assume I am or should be very angry. I am not, I leave that to #0 in fact. I do wish to recover the research data and would like to hold the traitor accountable, but ultimately doubt the former is possible and that the latter will be necessary.
Given the 'fingerprints' of the agency involved in this, I highly doubt the researcher will be seen again alive. Whatever they were promised, their value to this agency ended the moment they acquired our data and they are not inclined to treasure traitors. They betray each other fairly regularly, of course- but it's alright when THEY do it because they're so ELITE you see- when LESSERS do it they're just proving themselves slightly more expendable than usual.
Pompous gits.
Another reason they will not be terribly thrilled with their acquisition is that the researcher in question did not quite succeed in securing all of our data. Enough, mind you, to prove troubling still, but I think they did not QUITE get what their benefactors wanted.
Meanwhile we've determined there is a new corporation, no doubt rather hollow still, that has been- to a degree- discreetly formed to take advantage of the stolen data. It's a taunt directed squarely at me, as can be seen in the name itself.
Retekra Industries.
Get it? GET IT?!
Ugh.
More on this as things develop. I rather feel that this is something of a punitive gesture as well, for my attempts to stress the need to dispel the miasma of fear so many live in- which is very much part of this agency's plan.
If so, this seems like a further bad joke. It's really not as if anyone but the odd few employees and their agents read this silly thing of mine.
Trippy video courtesy of Google's Artificial Neural Networks
Pictures HERE (Not all of which are work/mind safe.)
Progress continues.
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