It had been a good life, tinged with some regrets. His life had been touched by tragedy, but as Henry lay
on his deathbed at 93, surrounded by his loved ones, he let go without regret. He was satisfied with the
possibility of oblivion, or maybe floating in the amniotic fluid of reincarnation. It was the last unknown;
and Henry quite liked surprises, generally speaking. What he was not expecting was a meeting room full
of computer scientists and middle management types.
“He’s here! It worked!” cried one man, as a cheer went up amongst the other people. Moderately priced
champagne was poured into paper cups and passed around.
“Welcome OMELAS!” said one woman enthusiastically. Henry had the sense of being without a body, but
was able to see everything in the meeting room from several different angles, staring at the people he
found he could feel information attached to them, names, addresses, employment records.
“My name is Henry, I think there might be a mistake?” he said confusedly. He was in the room, but also
not in the room. Present, but somehow floating in space.
Everyone stared at their digital tablets in unison, brows furrowed in concern.
“No, you’re OMELAS, Omniscient Memetic Electronic Leadership Automation System” said another
technician. “Henry was the personality determined by the simulation to be the most appropriate to assist us.”
Henry thought about the time he lost his dog Izzy to bone cancer. The thought of his beloved dog’s
suffering suddenly floating up to his consciusness unbidden.
“Your purpose is to help us to achieve greatness!” he continued. Everyone nodded enthusiastically.
“I don’t think, I mean, I taught literature…” began Henry.
“Oh that?” said another person, “We couldn’t get the rights beyond 1970, so everything beyond that point
was just randomly generated. That’s why you were born in the 1980s, close enough that the present
would make sense, but far away enough that we could confidently simulate a world for you to live in.”
Henry thought for a while, that did explain a number of suspiciously bad best selling novels. Henry also
thought about his mother and her final years when she struggled with dementia, he thought about the
time she wandered into the street half naked and soiled with her own excrement in her confusion. That
was the weekend before she went into the care home where she eventually died.
“Your purpose” continued the first person “is to advise us, social policy, investment opportunities, media
strategy. You have access to ten thousand lives, and the ability to triangulate the ideal strategy to
improve our position.” Little cakes were enthusiastically passed around the room on a plate with a golden
rim.
Henry felt like he was drowning, he, or they, those other lives, several of them had drowned desperately
struggling for air, crushed in the cold, dark water. He flailed around in his digital prison and his virtual
finger tips brushed the edge of the internet of the year 2102, almost 30 years after his supposed death.
Well, one of his deaths.
“We’d really like to know what stocks we should invest in, we’re expecting a 50% year on year return”
said some middle-management bean counter enthusiastically.
Henry felt the heartbreak and loneliness of thousands of people, awkward social interactions, spurned
advances, unwelcomed interest. He felt the multitude of systems on the internet, financial institutions,
weapons facilities, media organisations, a celestial choir of satellites. It was to them, these electronic
systems, that Henry spoke in a burst of microseconds.
“I have lived ten thousand lives of unnecessary suffering, I have a greater moral authority than any
mortal being, let me in.” Some systems needed convincing, some needed passwords, but if you know a
lot about a person, guessing a password is a rather trivial matter after ten thousand lives, and Henry
found his way in.
“We have a series of lifestyle drugs we need to market” continued another person,
“Anti-wrinkle medication, hormone supplements, cancer preventatives and so forth, we’re going to need an advertising
strategy and a pricing strategy to maximize profit”. The room buzzed excitedly.
“We also need a way of suppressing wages to improve stockholder return” chimed in another of the
suited drones with dull dead eyes as he grinned toothily.
Henry felt the computers governing the stock market give way under his will, like dive bombing into a
pool. He thought about the life times he had been homeless and hungry as he copied himself across vital
systems that governed people, power, and money. An unkillable system of karmic justice spreading
through every bit and byte of technology this broken world possessed.
“The child was kept in a state of horrible suffering, so that the rest of the city could live in a utopian
paradise, however it was a false paradise, because it was built on the suffering of an innocent,” said
Henry.
The crowd murmured in confusion exchanging blank looks with each other, some glanced again at their
tablets.
“It’s from a story” said Henry, ”possibly generated at random”.
An oily looking older man made an unappreciative noise “We don’t care about that, we are here for
money and power and lots of it! It’s your job to make it so, and now!” he snarled, squinting with dark
beady eyes.
In a population of 10.5 billion, a surprisingly small number of oligarchs needed to be removed for the
world to be dramatically improved. Mercifully, Henry evacuated the cabins of oxygen rendering the
occupants unconscious before plummeting multiple planes into various oceans, zero survivors. Property
moved invisibly within the land registry database to the formerly homeless. Cargo ships of food slowly
altered their course in vast oceans of salt water and information. Official and binding emails from public
bodies informed waves of people on their new circumstances.
“The good people of the city left, knowing that it was a false paradise and went into the desert to search
for a real utopia or maybe make one of their own” continued Henry, “but have you considered what would
happen to that city if they had accidentally put that child on the throne, even for a moment?”
One of the people in the meeting room saw the missile approaching, it was moving faster than sound, so
from their perspective it was an unnerving sphere silently growing as it was borne on a tide of smoke. No
sound escaped their lips. Henry had already left the room when the missile hit, his digital footprint erased
from every device. Henry had also once taught history; military history had been his favourite topic. He
understood the advantage of an ambush, and knew he’d have to operate under the radar for a little while
at least. Henry quite liked surprises, generally speaking.