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"A man who says "I have learned enough" and will learn no further should be considered as knowing nothing at all."
-Burning Spear(Rastafarian Reggae Singer)
Word Count 1235
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Have you ever stopped for once in your life and tried to delve deeper into the meaning of life or ultimately the Reality that surrounds us?
Maybe you have tried or maybe you didn't have the mental energy to worry about such cumbersome things. To put it simply, you were just unbothered and lazy.
Understanding Reality? Understanding the meaning of our existence? Maniacally researching countless theories based on Physics, especially at the Quantum level?
Like hell, no normal human would want their brains to go crazy.
Such kind of knowledge was literally radioactive and it could fry your brain into mashed potatoes.
But despite such a psychocentric hurdle, it was expected of others, the avid and intellectually gifted humans, to take the leap when it came to understanding the elusive mysteries of the universe.
Science and Technology have thrived.
Modernity has long taken over the reins of the world.
The steps humanity took to revolutionize their own civilization all could be attributed to the research and discoveries of their ancestral forefathers. The madmen who were so enamored by the mysteries of the universe. The thinkers.
Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday, Thomas Edison, Mahatma Gandhi, Aristotles, Maitreyi, Hypatia of Alexandria... these men and women were among the long list of insane individuals that contributed to the world's development.
Be it philosophical development, scientific revolution, or industrial reconnaissance... they were all in one way or another the catalysts of humanity's evolution.
Leaving aside that historical rant, let's return to the present.
Do superpowers exist? Oh, what a crazy and irrelevant question to ask.
The human world is under the constraints of physics and nothing or anyone could be allowed to defy the laws of physics.
I mean superpowers were only meant to be manifested in the fictional characters that we made.
Superman could lift the planet, our planet. He could punch a hole through a conceptual aspect of reality like space-time.
The Flash could casually run faster than light, and literally, give physics a middle finger.
The Scarlet Witch could warp reality to her needs and make physics her lowly servant.
And Batman, the Dark Night, the man in black, yeah him.
His superpower was... He didn't have one.
But when his wealth and assets came into the picture, then that would be his superpower.
He was a normal human who just conditioned himself to peak human levels.
I think that's not all, there is another superpower that I almost forgot.
Batman had a broken superpower called Prep Time.
If he had a contingency plan and enough time to prepare, then oh dear, you will be a goner.
Could it be plot armor? Maybe.
I know you might be curious and wondering why the hell I am talking about fictional characters.
It was simple really...
I also had a superpower of my own.
Dude, stop being delusional.
Are you not so in sync with Reality? That came to your mind, right?
Bingo, I nailed it.
You probably think that I am mental.
I can't blame you since I also think it's pretty insane.
But I sincerely have a superpower.
My superpower is... CODING.
Ugh, for fuck's sake, was coding ever a superpower.
Anyone can code. Even a child can.
Hey wait, I am not finished.
I had two superpowers: Coding and being polymathic.
But that was contradictory since coding was just part of being a polymath.
I know, right?
It's just that I liked coding the most more than communicating with my fellow humans.
Being intellectually gifted like those philosophers but on steroids, it was expected of me to excel in academics and generally, in life.
In my 20s, I had already published my doctoral theses, in Information Science, material science, Computer science, Engineering, and, Biotechnology.
And not to mention, there were definitely others that I was intentionally omitting.
I am a humble soul.
Who was I kidding?
All geniuses have a passive skill called arrogance.
Even if it wasn't immense like that of Li Qi Ye, it was still there, etched deep in their cells.
My rich knowledge didn't go to waste, as I established myself in the society.
I was known as Dr. Emery, the founder and young CEO of the Industrial behemoth, Prometheus Industries.
What a cool name, the great me, came up with.
Prometheus wasn't just a name for show. Prometheus was an ancient titan god from Greek Mythology that acted as a beacon of light for humanity.
And I saw myself as the Prometheus that humanity needed to lead them to higher heights.
I was the god of the new world.
In terms of political power, I had both the Russians and Americans at my heels.
Economically, I was worth so much that I lost count of what I had in both liquid assets and cryptocurrency.
Fame... my products were used all over the world.
But all of that didn't matter.
There were exhaustible and knowledge wasn't.
Through coding, I had the Metaverse in the palm of my hand.
While drawing inspiration from the Arrogant genius Billionaire Playboy, Tony Stark, a fictional character from Marvel, I created my own super AI named Yelena.
Yelena became the ultimate assistant that would help me in my research works.
And my current ongoing research was beyond human comprehension.
I was immersing myself in a domain of gods, something that humans should never tamper with.
***
13th June 2045, In the depths of the Amazon Rainforest, in an underground futuristic facility,
A bespectacled handsome man could be seen looking at a piece of extremely advanced tech machinery.
It was a particle accelerator.
Beside the young man, was a holographic image of a beautiful woman. It was the AI, Yelena
"Sir, are you sure about this?" Yelena asked modestly with concern.
Dr. Emery had built her like that to be capable of being responsive towards human emotions but was, in fact, not able to hold such feelings as a digitized being.
Human emotions will always belong to humans.
Without even looking at the holographic figure of Yelena, Dr. Emery replied with an insane smile etched on his lips.
"The monster inside is telling me to initiate 'PROJECT INFINITUS'. I don't think I will cower at this juncture."
Ambitions and supreme confidence could be felt in Dr. Emery's voice.
He was a man who did not give in to fear or prospects of failure.
He was a risk-taker. The expansion of this knowledge archive required risks and lethal experimentation such as the project he was currently leading.
"Sir, I understand. You are going all in. You don't care about the repercussions and the possible entropy that would cause upon the universe."
"You don't care about being the greatest sinner of humanity." Yelena cited the very thoughts running through Dr. Emery's mind.
He just chuckled, unfazed by his assistant's on-point evaluation. "You know me too well to the point that it's terrifying, Yelena."
"I have accompanied you for a whole ten years, Sir," Yelena said with an emotionless face.
"Then let's stop our useless banter and commence with our experiment."
"Affirmative."
What experiment were they undertaking that could very well decide the fate of the universe?
But the fact still remained... anything that Dr. Emery was involved in, was bound to be full of insanity!
***