The car drove toward The White House.
I was directed to the center of the lounge upon my arrival.
Three people were already waiting there.
"Have you guys been chosen, too?" I asked.
They were of different ages and skin colors but all nodded nevertheless.
Because the skies were off-limit, another car appeared six hours later, carrying four people.
All eight, old and young, were gathered.
No one told us what to do.
A government official closed the gates of The White House.
An African-American boy smiled. "It"s just the eight of us here now. Let"s introduce ourselves?"
Everyone nodded in agreement.
The boy licked his lip before starting, "I"m Franklin from Washington. I was stealing a car when I received the message. What luck!"
The boy nudged me a little after he finished.
"Hi, I"m Chalk, Chinese American. I came here with my mom when I was seven. I just graduated from university and have yet to find a job."
"You won"t need a job anymore, brother." The African-American boy grinned.
A middle-aged Caucasian man spoke up, somewhat annoyed, "Name"s Michael, I have some savings from the past and a small villa in Hollywood. Life"s been pretty decent until I received the message and got forced to go here."
Right as he finished, a balding uncle exclaimed, "I recognize you, Michael! I"m Clifford, remember me?"
"Clifford?" Michael repeated, scratching his head.
"North Yankton, 30 years ago? We were cla.s.smates," Clifford supplied excitedly.
After a short pause, a smile broke out on Michael"s face. He rushed over to give Clifford a big hug.
As the next person was about to introduce himself, the whole lounge lit up.
White light shone in through the windows and everyone fell silent.
It was so bright, like in the afternoon, that everyone had to squint their eyes.
A huge boom sounded from the roof, followed by sounds of footsteps.
The footsteps grew louder, and shortly after, the main gate of The White House opened.
There was a fear of the unknown and immense pressure overtaking the hall.
The man before us was simply too perfect and not at all human-like.
He spoke slowly, "Are the eight of you going to provide me with answers?"
It was as if the man was speaking right by our ears. Everyone started nodding their head vigorously.
The man continued, "My s.p.a.ceship moves too fast so it"s impossible to bring such weak human bodies over."
"What do you mean? Aren"t you bringing us to your planet?" Franklin asked.
The man took out a gun-like object. "We"ve studied the composition of earthlings" bodies. They"re very much different from ours. Upon death, something called "spirit" will emerge and its weight is still at 21g. After compression, it becomes as dense as our core. Only in that way can all eight of you follow me to Planet Resplendent."
The man fired a shot.
A lightning bolt flashed before splitting up and striking all eight people
There was no time to react.
All bodies turned into ashes.
The man swirled a small bottle in his hands before walking out of the room. The bright ray shone down on him and took him away.
The s.p.a.ceship flew up and left the planet.
It was as if nothing had ever happened, save for the fact that Earth was now eight people fewer.
I slowly opened my eyes and ma.s.saged my head.
I"ve never felt this awake and clear-headed.
Information started loading in my brain.
The last thing I remembered was the alien man firing at us.
Am I dead? I glanced down at my hands.
My skin was snow-white, fingers slender.
These were not my hands.
I looked down at my body. It wasn"t mine.
I could see strange things through my eyes. Numbers would appear at times, too.
What"s happening?
My body had become perfectly proportional. I touched my face.
I could feel that I no longer looked the same.
What exactly was going on?
I got off the bed. The sunlight was exceptionally glaring.
I opened the windows and looked up.
There were three suns.
I quickly shut the windows and opened the room door.
It was that man.
"Don"t kill me," I shouted.
"I never did. Perhaps on that planet, yes. I merely extracted your soul, brought it here, and gave you a new body," he explained.
"Planet Resplendent? Three suns? This is Planet Resplendent?" I asked urgently.
"That"s right," was his reply.
"Where are the rest? All seven of them?" I questioned.
"Their souls aren"t as detached as yours and are still lying dormant. You might be the only one we have left. I"ll bring you to my teacher now. Please tell him what faith is," the man said.
"Faith? Why do I have to talk about this? And them… aren"t they going to wake up?" I asked, bewildered.
"This is why you"re here. We gave you guys a brand new life in the hope that you can unravel the secret behind our planet. Please don"t disappoint us."
Helpless, I followed him into a very robotic room, in which sat another man who looked exactly like the first man I saw.
"Who is he? Your twin?" I asked in shock.
"He"s my teacher," the man answered.
"Teacher? Why do you two look exactly the same?"
"The same? Every one of us here looks the same," he responded.
I quivered, immediately searching for a reflective surface within the room.
I found a concave mirror on the wall and caught a glimpse of my face.
Just as he said, we had the exact same faces.
Touching my face, I shouted, "Why???"
"Why what?" both men asked in unison.
"Why"s my face like that?" I questioned.
"Because you"re one of us now," the man replied simply.
I was dumbstruck.
The man wrung his head out and held it with his left hand. He flipped a lid on his head open. "This is us."
I saw a microchip. He was all machine.
"You"re saying that we"re all like that?" I asked.
"You"re more complicated since we extracted your soul and planted it into the microchip. As such, you cannot be dismantled, otherwise, it might cause malfunctioning. We"re not sure," he explained.
"What about my partners?" I asked.
"Same as you."
I felt around my crotch area. There was nothing.
"How do I eat and s.h.i.t? What about s.e.x? What are we, exactly?"
"What"s the use of those? Aren"t we a more perfected version? Stop digressing and tell us what faith is."
"You guys are robots? Shouldn"t you be immortal then?" I shouted.
"The microchip is our storage. Everything will be saved inside and upon hitting the limit, we will die. My teacher"s managed to live through two reincarnations because he only has five minutes a day. So don"t waste his time and tell us what faith is, quick."
"Why is it so important?" I questioned.
"Our ancestor once told us that we"ve already reached our maximum potential and that faith is the key to a breakthrough," the teacher spoke up.
I stared at him blankly.
"You wanna know what faith is? Revert me back and I"ll tell you," I bargained.
"Why are you so ignorant, human? You"re the most advanced and perfected version of yourself now."
"Heh heh," I laughed bitterly.
"So what exactly is true faith?" the man repeated his question.
"f.u.c.k faith and f.u.c.k science," I screamed as I tried to strangle myself.
I strangled with all the strength I"ve got.
A red halo within my eyes lit up.
Strange symbols appeared before my eyes and moved rapidly.
"What are you doing, human? Why are you harming yourself?" the man asked.
The red light grew brighter and I felt my body turn numb.
Four words emerged.
It wasn"t any language I"ve seen before but I understood them.
Safety mode.
A sheet of white took over my vision.
"You"re finally here," a voice sounded in my ears.
"Who are you?"
"I"ve been waiting a long time now. I"m from Planet Earth," the voice continued.
"Then who are these people? What are they?" I shouted.
"I"m just a projected image now."
I looked quietly into the sheet of white.
"Our science has advanced enough for us to travel into the future. I was an astronaut, who had been asked to orbit the earth. When I was getting ready to return, I saw the earth undergo reincarnation. The whole planet collapsed and an azure planet re-emerged. I was at apogee and hence avoided that. Upon returning to earth, I realized that we were back in prehistory. That was my first and last time experiencing something like this. I started doing some calculations and came up with this concept of reincarnation. I searched for solutions. Since it"s impossible for me to save those on earth, the only thing I could do was to save these semi-smart robots."
The voice recording ended and the man appeared.
"These AI robots are the result of the science and technology of that time. We programmed them complete tasks we aren"t capable of doing but I overwrote some laws, making them think that they"re from Planet Resplendent. Surviving became their primary purpose. I programmed an order for them to keep Earth under observation and added a secret code based on the concept of faith. Because the robots aren"t able to harm themselves, activating the secret code will lead to self-destruction. They are inevitably going to check in on Earth and realize that faith is something exclusive to humans. They will seek humans out and change them. Of course, if you"re listening to my recording, I have succeeded. I"ll hand over all codes to you and leave it to you to help mankind overcome reincarnation."
The sight before my eyes became clear once again.
"What have you done, human?" the man asked.
"Shut up, stupid robots," I yelled.
Both men immediately covered their mouths.
I was startled.
"Sit," I ordered.
They plopped down onto the ground
I looked at myself helplessly. I was no longer human.
How was I to save mankind?
I opened the windows and looked out.
This planet was green and safe.
"There"s oxygen here?" I questioned.
"Yes," the robot answered.
"And there"s no reincarnation over here?"
"We"ve witnessed Earth reincarnating hundreds of thousands of times but we"ve yet to experience it ourselves."
My eyes lit up. "Why can"t Man come over via s.p.a.ceships?"
"Humans are too fragile for that. Accelerating into the speed of light will shatter their bodies," robot man explained.
"What if we slow it down?" I suggested.
"Reduce it to 10% and it should be fine."
"How many years is that?"
"40."
"How long can I live?" I asked.
"You have the same core as us so that will last you about one and a half reincarnations."
"Let"s send a group of people on board, have them bear children at the age of twenty, and prepare seven generations" worth of supplies. All we need is for one man and one woman to get here safely..." I mumbled to myself.
"Project Ark, start," I announced.
Numbers and data appeared before my eyes, precalculating all the issues I"ll face.