The Mark

Micheal felt his heart leap with joy as he entered the grounds. The ancient, sandstone block buildings of the King’s university were part of the most prestigious university in the world. And how could it be, that across the entire world, one place was considered the greatest? Because the thing that had seemed inevitable had finally come to pass. The world was finally ruled by one government.

The year was 2600, and Micheal Dawson lived in Sydney Australia. He was happy in his life as an academic, he was a voracious reader, and he loved to write. He had had articles published in many journals, and had even written a book, ‘The Wisdom of the Ancients’, where he compared the wise sayings of many old cultures with those from other cultures. The book had been a small success, but he was mostly just happy that people were reading his work, money was a secondary concern.

Today he would go to the library, looking for something to pique his interest, something to spark a new article or publication. Before long, he was in the old building, excited to be surrounded by the wealth of knowledge. The towering shelves loomed over him, and golden rays of sunshine came in from the high windows.

At the moment, he was strolling past the section on Roman history. Empires had risen and fallen throughout history, and while the Romans had brought civilization to many cultures, he felt he would leave this particular aspect to those with a greater passion for it.

It was interesting though to consider the way various civilizations had waxed and waned. There was a common consensus among most people, that the current world government, would be the last, at least until space exploration became a real thing. People talked about colonizing mars, but there was still a long way to go for that dream to become a reality.

His measured steps eventually took him to the Ancient Near East section. Here was the story of Gilgamesh, Egyptian mythology, Egyptian wisdom literature, Mesopotamian wisdom literature, Histories of the Assyrian empire. He then noticed a copy of the Bible on the shelves. He had some fondness for the Bible, as he had drawn heavily on the Proverbs of Solomon in his book. The proverbs had seemed to him to be the wisest of all aphoristic sayings he studied. Of course there were gems in every culture.

He found himself recalling a Sumerian proverb. ‘He who knows how to move around becomes strong. He will live longer than the sedentary man’. Common knowledge today, but amazing to see that people had become wise to the fact at such an early point in civilization. Then he thought of some of the early Egyptian proverbs he had read. ‘Be industrious, let thine eyes be open, lest you become a beggar, for the man that is idle cometh not to honor.’ Every culture, or at least those in the Ancient Near East had unearthed timeless wisdom.

Ah, but the Bible. Here was a text that had endured throughout history. There were still many practicing Christians today, though he did not know much about what life was like for them. On the shelves were a few different translations, the New International Version, the New Revised Standard Edition, The Holmann. A colleague had once asked him, ‘Why do you use the Holman translation?’, to which his reply had been, ‘I don’t know, it’s easy to understand, but they go to the effort of being as close to the original meaning as possible.’

There were so many different sections to inspect within the Bible. There was the Torah, the first five books, in which probably Genesis was the most interesting. Then there were the writings, like Esther, Job, and Ruth, and of course the prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah. He decided this time to have a look around the end in the New Testament, probably the section he was least familiar with. And then he became interested in an idea. What was the very last book of the Bible? Flicking through, he eventually found himself looking at the Revelation of St John. He had heard of this, but he had never read it.

He began to read the first couple of verses. 

‘The revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave Him to show His slaves what must quickly take place. He sent it and signified it through His angel to His slave John, who testified to God’s word and to the testimony about Jesus Christ, in all he saw. The one who reads this is blessed, and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it are blessed, because the time is near!’

He laughed inside just a little. The time is near, is it? He we are about 2500 years away from when this book is written, whatever this book was writing about, it had probably never happened. He began to skim read it, and eventually began to flick through a couple of the pages. He soon found himself at the beginning of chapter 13.

‘And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. He had 10 horns and seven heads. On his horns were 10 diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. The beast I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like a bear’s, and his mouth was like a lion’s mouth. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. One of his heads appeared to be fatally wounded, but his fatal wound was healed. The whole earth was amazed and followed the beast. They worshiped the dragon because he gave authority to the beast. And they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to wage war against him?’

What could this be talking about? He found himself thinking about the earth’s current president, Wilbur Wilson. Nothing about this passage seemed at least on a surface reading to relate at all to anything in the present day. But as he read further down, his hands began to tremble.

‘And he requires everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to be given a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark: the beast’s name or the number of his name.’

He remembered the day he had been given his implant. This was the chip through which they could access their funds, and also served as identification, in the same way a driver’s license would have back in the day. His was embedded in his right hand, and to his knowledge, it was sometimes implanted in the forehead.

How had someone around 100AD predicted this? He was about to continue reading, when he heard a voice speaking to him, quietly but clearly.

‘Micheal, I am an extension of the Terminus global AI system. It has been found that you are causing yourself distress by reading volatile material, and I have been assigned to direct you away from this using brain stimulation. Please put the book back and take a break today in your home.’

‘What?’ He thought to himself. ‘What is going on?’

Again, the voice came through. ‘Please put the book back and take a break in your home.’

’Well, I’m not going to do that!’ Said his own voice in his head.

But as he tried to continue further in the book, he found himself feeling a wave of nausea and anxiety wash over him, and he began to shake.

‘Put the book down Micheal.’ Came the voice again.

He was shocked, and tried to read further, but the anxiety and shaking began to increase. He felt like his brain would come running out through his ears.

‘Put the book down.’ Said the AI, this time more firmly.

Somewhere beneath all the anxiety, he knew he was angry, but it was becoming impossible to read any further. He had never heard anything about this terminus AI, but it was obviously real. He knew the anxiety he was feeling did not come from himself, he had always loved to read, and there was no way even a book such as this would have such a painful effect.

Nevertheless, it seemed impossible to go on any further in the way he was going. Then he began to wonder, had he been marked as someone dangerous now, much in the same way as people who bought blacklisted books, like Mein Kampf, would have been some hundreds of years ago. He thought about his life, he loved being an academic, and he loved that he got paid to do what he loved. He even enjoyed teaching other up and coming students in his lectures. Maybe this was a warning he should he heed. He closed the Bible and put it back on the shelf. He would go home, clear his head, and find something else to write about.

Leaving the library, he took one last look at it before he left. No, he did not want to lose his life in academia over one dangerous book. He was a good citizen, and did not want to jeopardize his position by studying something that government had deemed dangerous. Maybe he did need a break. He found himself imagining making a cup of tea in the privacy of his apartment, and reading one of the fiction books he had bought recently. This whole episode was best forgotten.