The Beta Test

The Beta Test

Welcome to Beta, land of the reinvented. 

My name’s Rissa, and I’ll be your unwilling tour guide. Please refrain from interrupting, I have a lot to say and not a lot of time to do it. Oh, and trust me – you’ll want to listen. 

So, where was I? Right, Beta. 

This is the world that knows your every whim and is built to serve the harmonious and blessed. The “Chosen Ones”, born in a world free from the burdens of history. 

You want a latte? It’s already prepped. Got a headache? Check the mail, aspirin has already been delivered. Trying for a baby? Check your status – it’ll update you and the rest of the planet. 

That’s bliss, right? Don’t believe the hype. 

In return for a world that was basically one giant neural network, we had to give up a part of ourselves. You see this tattoo on my left arm, the one that looks like tendrils and wires? 

That’s the algorithm - well, part of it. 

Embedded in each circle of ink is a form of nanotech, created by Beta’s founders. Each one feeds back information from my nervous system, relaying it to the chip in my wrist. That chip connects to the Algorithm Data Control Centre. 

Back when the human race lived on Earth, there were record-breaking levels of crime, war, and disease. The world was focused on consumption, ravaging the Earth until there was nothing left. People. Plants. Animals. You name it, people used and abused it. Leaders fought for control, unwittingly becoming part of the problem. You see, it was more taking and less giving. 

Leaders took power, people took revenge, and the world fell victim. 

So, the ADCC was born under a new force, tasked with creating ‘Planet B’, later known as Beta. Faced with their own self-destruction, they gave up on their home; outsourcing new land and new life in the Space beyond. However, in order to make this new world last, they had to combat the one thing that stood its way. 

Human Unpredictability. 

And how do you fix a bug? You find its core and decode it. Thus, bringing about the first-ever tech-infested parasite aka the algorithm. 

At first, people revolted, fearing government control. There were riots, protests and general uproar, seemingly condemning the project before it could lift off. Eventually, the media went silent, and people moved on to other press conspiracies. Then, the trials started.  

The ADCC’s high clearance superseded the will of the people, allowing them to commence the ‘Beta Test’. Pro-trial propaganda was spread across the globe, followed by testimonies and positive data. The public opinion began to be swayed, and revolutionists became ‘paranoid’ and ‘clinically insane’. They became people who needed to be helped and not listened to. 

Suddenly hormones, impulses, biochemical interactions - and some say thoughts – became public access. Within weeks, the ADCC had enough data to accurately predict and alter 99.9% of human behaviour.  Crime, war, consumption, and a whole array of human phenomena, were then able to be monitored and prevented before people even knew what was happening. 

Don’t you see it?

The algorithm created to protect and serve us, is the exact reason why Beta isn’t so free after all. Not that we deserve freedom. It’s this misguided sense of luxury and entitlement that destroyed Earth in the first place. Years of gluttony and neglect, culminating in a hellfire storm that would put the rapture to shame. But this is no seventh heaven. 

We used to believe in privacy and free will, now those are like curse words. Leaders lead, and sheep follow. Almost anyone here would wonder, why I would want to hide from a world that was built just for us? 

I’ll tell you why. 

Every day I wake up, stuck in a high-tech cage built into the planet’s unviable terrain. When I awake, my clothes – general regulation of course – have already been pressed and laid out for me. My breakfast rations have already been set on the counter, with my vitamins and a glass of water. It’s tasteless and unsatisfying, much like the rest of life here. Then, I report to E-den for work, where I receive my mandatory injection and a physical to check on any cellular degeneration caused by the atmospherical change. 

After work, I am free to do as I wish, but I am not free. My calls are monitored, actions logged by cameras and my chip, and I can only venture outside with permission – and a special suit. 

I’ve never felt the feeling of sand between my toes, running barefoot through the surf; something I’ve seen only from pictures. I’ve never felt the sun on my face. I’ve never even really lived. 

Is it so hard to see why I want to escape this reality? Still, there is more….

It is the flakiness of human society to bury old skeletons and move one. For society, acceptance of the future overwrites the past. We messed up. We ignored reality even as it screamed in our faces. And now?

We repeat history. 

According to my calculations, Beta is heading for the same fate as Earth. Even with monitoring, we are exercising an unsustainable level of resource depletion. It’s not just food and electricity, it’s humanity. Social and physical skills have fallen to the wayside, being replaced by further technology. The more we build, the less we do, and the more infested it all becomes. I hacked into the ADCC, and for the 12 seconds before the algorithm shocked me and shut me out, I uncovered some files. 

The algorithm is already writing code for a Top-Secret project named “Delta”. My guess is it’s another Planet for us to destroy, always seeking more to drain. Want to know what’s more upsetting? My brother is leading the charge.

I can’t tell you how many times we have argued about the algorithm. Yet, I could never win. I’m the minority, the revolutionist that never quit. In over a century, Earth has become a distant memory. Nevertheless, I refuse to give up hope.

4 generations in, I still haven’t lost sight of what matters.

We are all part of the algorithm, and there’s no way to escape it. At least, that’s what we believed, anyway. Until I did something no-one on Beta could expect…….

I sent a message to Earth. 

After all, why would I? There’s no one there. 

Except, I didn’t send this message in our time. No, this time I hacked into 2045, and the algorithm that was created to stop me didn’t exist. 

I didn’t actually travel back in time, of course. That doesn’t exist…yet. I backlogged the message, sending it in ancient Html via old email databases that were disbanded over 70 years ago. The aim was to communicate with someone back in 2045, who might be the key to changing this future. If they could take this message and pass it on to the higher-ups or raise awareness about the path the world was falling into, then maybe they could save it. Maybe the ADCC wouldn’t ever be created. 

Let’s call it….Plan A, since the leaders already skipped it in favour of Planet B. 

Why wasn’t I stopped this time, you ask?

The algorithm cannot predict all of human nature, since it is human in design – arguably it’s most dangerous quality. We may see patterns in others; we may even begin to understand their probabilities, but if there is one thing that humans have yet to understand in totality – it’s the human heart.

It’s been gut-wrenching ever since I sent the message, wading through day to day, unknowing if anyone would ever see it, and fearing its discovery. We don’t have laws for treason here, since there was no need. However, if there was ever an act of total condemnation, this was it. If discovered, I would pay heavily in return. 

Algorithm or no algorithm, the sporadic beats inside my chest went wild this morning when I woke up to the following data alert:

{Message Received}