…
"'My God, my Master, why have you sold me away? Why have you taken refuge on another world, where my cries and my prayers are left unheard in the void?'
I pray this prayer, as it is all I have left for comfort." - from Markus's final log.
…
Isaiah wrote in his notebook, his forehead hovering inches from the pages. What he was writing had nothing to do with what his teacher taught at the front of the classroom. Isaiah wasn't trying to be disrespectful or uninterested. Yet, the teacher was easy to tune out, since her lectures had little to do with his current fascination.
Plus, in a small way, an archaic form of education was a waste of time. None of the students had chips, but one day they would. The point of a rudimentary education such as this was to ensure a student didn't receive their chip and have it become a crutch for the rest of their lives. The human brain was plastic enough to have the chips completely ruin the host, feeding the brain an unlimited supply of dopamine with comfort, artificial reality, and endless knowledge. If the user didn't have at least some basic understanding of reality and a plan to occupy it, they would surrender totally to the chip's potential and become a meat shell with a brain drowning in chemicals.
Isaiah had listened to those lectures on the inherent hazards of AI enhanced human brains. He wasn't sure how much to believe the warnings though. Surely, humans were more resilient than what was proposed, and if artificial reality was truly commonplace and easy to get lost in, couldn't one apply the same tools and logic to every lecture, every evidence supporting the teacher's arguments? In that sense, wasn't reality fluid and subject to the viewpoints of the individual experiencing it?
What was a certain fact to Isaiah was that he didn't have a mother. Not anymore. That's what grounded him better than those lessons. That's what kept him jotting down pages of notes on them, the things that killed his mother.
"Isaiah," a voice called from the front of the room.
Isaiah ignored the voice. He wasn't done with his current train of thought.
"Isaiah," the voice continued. Isaiah still didn't hear her. He could've been on another planet for all the attention he gave her. "Isaiah!"
Isaiah jumped up out of his chair. He looked around, coming back to reality. His classmates stared at him. Several were hiding a laugh. Others just simply allowed their natural response to reveal itself unabated.
"What are you doing," the teacher, Asher, asked, frustrated.
Isaiah answered, "I'm writing about my latest findings on the indigenous—"
"Isaiah," Asher cut him off. "I was being rhetorical."
How was I supposed to know, Isaiah wondered to himself. This is one of things he didn't like about people. They were hard to read. They could say one thing and mean something completely different. At least robots were predictable. They did what they were programmed to do.
"Oh," is all Isaiah managed to respond with. Still, what he had been writing was important. "I mean, it's really interesting. I mean, the vents are practically perfect for—"
"Isaiah," Asher cut him off again. "Can you tell me anything that I've been saying?"
Isaiah stiffened up. He looked down, trying to avoid all of the eyes that were on him. He could almost feel them, like they were spiders crawling all over his skin. "No," he finally admitted. A cacophony of giggles seemed to explode in his ears. "Uh, may I be excused?"
"Sit down," Asher answered curtly, going back to the writing board. She didn't know why she didn't like the kid. He was smart, creative, full of potential to make a difference. Perhaps that was it. Isaiah seemed to be the walking definition of wasted potential. She could teach him so much, mold him into an amazing societal contribution. Isaiah just didn't seem to care about all that. He was absorbed in his own little world.
Asher turned back, hearing more snickers behind her. Isaiah was sitting in his desk, but he was distracting. He was curling up, trying to make himself smaller. The result was it ironically made him more distracting. Asher relented, "You're excused, Isaiah."
Isaiah shoved his notebook, pen, work pad, everything he had in his sack. He didn't care about the organization. He just wanted to get away. Get away from everyone.
He hurried out of the room, trying his hardest to be invisible. He hunched his back and paced as quickly as his legs could take him. In his room, he was safe. He could tinker with his robotic friend. He could study his experiment. As much as he hated being alone, he never felt safer than when no one was around.