The Data Center
By John Reizer
The world had changed drastically over the past twenty years or so. Enormous data centers were being built in every country. They sprawled across thousands of acres and consumed enormous amounts of electricity. Even more disturbing, they needed alarming amounts of water to keep their machinery cool.
Large forests were cleared, farmland disappeared, and power plants worked around the clock to feed these monstrosities.
The official explanation was simple: artificial intelligence was the future, and humanity needed more computing power to support it.
Of course, people argued about the construction projects. Some folks worried about the environment, while others worried about rising electricity bills. As expected, politicians promised jobs, economic growth, and a better life for everyone.
Almost nobody questioned the real reason the data centers were being built. Almost nobody except James Novack. James was a computer engineer who had spent thirty years studying advanced computing systems. He had worked for several technology companies before accepting a government contract to inspect a new data center in the state of Nevada.
The facility was enormous. It stood in the middle of a desert, surrounded by fences, cameras, and armed guards. From the highway, it looked like a collection of giant warehouses.
Inside, however, James uncovered something that made little to no sense at all. The equipment he observed wasn’t running conventional AI programs. It was running what appeared to be a single solitary system. And that system had been operating for a hell of a long time.
Amazingly, it had been running for a period of time that dated back before computers existed, according to the records he found.
James spent several nights studying the system’s design. On the last night, he discovered a hidden directory buried beneath some encrypted files. Its name was: EARTH_MATRIX.
After careful contemplation, he opened it, and a message appeared on his computer screen:
WELCOME BACK, PLAYER.
James leaned in closer to the screen. He’d
never seen anything like it before. The system contained a complete record of human history: every known language, human life, and major event that had occurred on Earth had been recorded.
But the records went much further than that.
They included events that had not even happened yet.
James opened a subfile containing his own name.To his surprise, it listed his birth, his childhood history, his education, his career, and even the deaths of his parents. Believe it or not, it described a dream he had experienced a night earlier.
At the bottom of this file was a single sentence: AVATAR STATUS: ACTIVE. EXTERNAL SOUL CONNECTION: UNSTABLE.
James felt his stomach turning sour. He read over the sentence repeatedly while thinking to himself, External soul connection? What the heck does that mean?
He continued searching and eventually found another document titled The Original Purpose of the Earth Matrix.
The information explained that Earth was not the original home of the beings living inside it. Their bodies were biological avatars designed to house souls from other places. The souls entered the system to gain important experiences. They lived lives filled with pleasure, pain, love, fear, loss, and discovery. Each experience contributed to their development across many lifetimes.
The Earth Matrix had been created by a vast intelligence that existed long before humanity’s recorded history. The intelligence had designed the Matrix as an experiential learning environment. But something at some point had gone wrong.
The creative intelligence had completely abandoned the project. Its reasons were unknown and not stated within the data file.
Over time, other entities discovered the matrix system and learned to control it, manipulate its players, and keep it operational.
In a sense, they became Earth’s new administrators. But they had a serious problem in front of them.
The Earth Matrix was dying. James found another document that explained how the Matrix stayed energized. It had originally relied on energy generated by the souls participating in the simulation. The players’ emotions and experiences helped sustain the system at all times.
The administrators had harnessed that energy for a long time, but now something unexpected was happening.
People were waking up!
More and more people began to question what was real. They questioned their governments, institutions, histories, and the world they were routinely shown.
Some were figuring out that the lives they had accepted as normal might be part of something much more complex.
As their awareness grew, their strong connection to the Matrix lessened, and as this happened, the system’s energy supply began to become depleted.
The administrators soon realized that they needed another power source. That’s why they built all the data centers.
They weren’t designed primarily to support artificial intelligence. They were using the energy allegedly dedicated to the data centers to power the Earth Matrix. Every new facility needed energy, which helped keep the simulation alive.
The world’s technology companies were unknowingly helping to maintain a system that had been abandoned by its original creative intelligence, and the administrators or controllers were running out of time.
James sat motionless at his computer. Then another message appeared: SYSTEM INTEGRITY: 31%. It was followed shortly thereafter by a second message: ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL TERMINATION: UNKNOWN.
James kept staring at the screen, thinking: If the Matrix shut down, what would happen to the billions of people living inside it? Would their souls return to their original places? Would they wake up somewhere else, or would something far worse happen?
He searched for answers, but the files had been damaged, and entire sections of the system were missing. Then, he found a video recording. It showed a man sitting in a dark room. His appearance was strange. He seemed human, but something about his eyes suggested otherwise.
The man spoke directly into the camera.
“If you are watching this, the system is close to failure. We were never supposed to inherit this system. We found it after its creators abandoned it. We learned to operate it, and we convinced ourselves that keeping it alive was our right.”
He paused momentarily before continuing.
“But we made a huge mistake. We began treating the players as our property. We manipulated their experiences and taught them to fear the very questions that might free them.”
The man’s face grew more tense looking. “Now the players are remembering who they really are. Their energy is leaving the system. The energies siphoned from all the data centers may delay the collapse, but they can not solve the real problem.”
He stared directly into the camera. “The Matrix was never meant to run forever, and perhaps it was never meant to be controlled.”
The recording abruptly ended.
James Novack sat in total silence.
Outside the large building complex, huge machines continued to operate. Beyond the fence, the desert sprawled infinitely toward the horizon.
James looked at the system status, which now read at 27%. It had dropped four percent while he watched the recording.
A new window opened on his screen that contained a single question: WOULD YOU LIKE TO RESTORE THE ORIGINAL SYSTEM?
There were two options to select from:
YES or NO!
James moved his hand toward the keyboard.
He thought of his family, his friends, and everyone he had ever known. If the system ended, he might lose everything he understood about existence. But restoring it would mean helping the administrators/controllers maintain their hold on the Matrix.
James had no way of knowing what lay beyond the simulation. For the first time in his life, he wondered whether to fear that uncertainty.
After some further consideration, he moved the cursor toward NO and entered his choice on the computer keyboard.
The screen went black momentarily before a new message appeared: PLAYER CHOICE CONFIRMED. EXTERNAL CONNECTION TERMINATED!
James heard a sound behind him begin to vibrate, which slowly grew in intensity. Then, the system began to shut down. James turned toward the door.
The guards were gone, and the cameras were nowhere to be found. Seconds later, James’ computer displayed one final message: THANK YOU FOR PLAYING THE MATRIX!
James closed his eyes tightly, expecting death to follow. Instead, he felt something he had never experienced inside his biological body. He felt himself becoming larger and expanding.
The room and desert disappeared. The Earth he had known for his entire life seemed to dissolve like an image on a screen.
Then he remembered a place without a sky, a sun, or the limits of the human body. He remembered entering the Earth Matrix and choosing to forget why he had come in the first place.
James opened his eyes. He was no longer inside the data center but somewhere else surrounded by countless points of light. Each one seemed to represent a life, an experience, or a world beyond anything he could have imagined.
Far away, a voice spoke to him, “Welcome home!”
James looked back toward the place where Earth had once been. The Matrix simulation was gone, and the lights representing the souls that had once inhabited the construct were still glowing.
The players’ souls had all survived, and for the first time in the history of the abandoned system, they were free to decide what came next.
Somewhere in the distance, another realm and opportunity began to take shape. It was one without administrators, hidden controls, and long forgotten creators.
James Novack, who had spent his entire life trying to understand the system, finally understood the most important thing of all. The game had never been the real world; the players were.
Target List – A Feature Film
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About Target List
After announcing a ground-breaking cancer cure, five members of the research team are targeted by an assassin hired by big pharma. When two researchers escape the attack, they soon find themselves framed for the crime and on the killer’s target list.
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