Humanity is on an uprise of technological advancements, leading us to amazing biological discoveries. We’re faced with a fork in the road, letting us act as the architect to our evolutionary future. How far can we go and still be human? The lead scientist in this gene editing discovery must make the most powerful choice in humanity’s history, and he can only supress it for so long.

Transhumanism is a standalone sequel to the short story Taylorism, exploring the futuristic scifi Scrappers/Harvesters storyline. Enjoy the story in written form (link above), the artwork, and audio through the podcast with improv music.

Transhumanism

The definition of being human varies from person to person, culture and religion can play a crucial role. For some, it is critical for us to return to our true selves, embracing the billions of years of evolution that got us here. Others believe being human is about adapting and overcoming our weaknesses. We certainly have done a fair amount of the latter. The proof is seen in our dominance over the planet. Not to mention our technological advancements have made us unrecognizable to our next closest relatives.

The great apes are only a small fraction of what we’ve destroyed from our advancements. I suppose it doesn’t matter though, as we are simply evolving, as all creatures do. This means that our global supremacy is a part of our nature and not defying its intent. Or is it? The question isn’t a simple black and white answer. In the past, it has led to many debates from creditable people.

I, for one, stood somewhere in the middle, if that is an option, for many years. My career path led me to see the forefront of the technological developments. I was a bioengineer. Humanity is no longer afraid to play God with our genetics – an exciting discovery. None of us foresaw where this finding could go, nor did we expect the alterations to happen so suddenly. The flip in society was similar to the rise of the net well over a century ago, where the access and speed of the internet rapidly altered how society functioned.

Being a bioengineer has had many perks. There’s the usual benefits like consistent pay, healthcare, and vacation time. I also had access to information before the rest of civilization, such as progression in DNA editing. The process was difficult at first, time consuming, and expensive. Gene editing has taken many different names over the years. The details matter little because the end result is what shareholders are looking for. In a world ruled by privatized organizations, results that drive profit are king.

At first, we worked on small subjects like chickens and mice to see how gene editing can alter a creature. The intentions were good. We could cure genetic diseases, alter weak traits, and make the animals more resilient from birth. Our team determined these successful trials could be applied to improving humans. It’s a is noble, and foolish, cause. Greed is everywhere, and any good invention is a double-edged sword, fabricating new problems. If history has taught us anything, it is that technology grows from enterprises and war. We were unfortunate to have both with our miraculous discovery.

Manageficient Enterprises held the patent to our DNA modifying process. Unlike previous gene editing techniques, ours was less invasive, and the A.I. software was able to make far more accurate predictions of an edit’s outcome before we made the injection. Everyone wanted to get their hands on the tech for one reason or another. We could make bigger cattle, faster growing chickens. Hell, at the time we knew we could make smarter politicians, more attractive celebrities, and longer living powerful individuals . . . like CEOs.

The corporation held back, knowing we could streamline and improve the DNA modification tech. We moved beyond small creatures and into modifying chimpanzees. We made them intelligent, tougher, and then quickly terminated them. This wasn’t some foolish science fiction event, we’re aware of the dangers that come with our invention. Unfortunately, Manageficient Enterprises had their own goals in mind with the technology.

We worked on our first human modifications from “volunteers”. I knew better from seeing their rugged forms, cheap tattoos, and hateful scowls. I understood these were prisoners of some kind. Our team didn’t question their origins and went to work. We were given specific instructions to make them more resilient, then to give them faster reflexes and more muscles. Soon we learned we were making super soldiers for some government. The pilot project was the first of many branching from the initial scope. We worked with “volunteers” of all types from around the world, letting us exploit specific human traits.

One project had us improve the brain capacity of the volunteers. Another was designed for enhancing senses such as hearing and sight. A small group we made cancer free. One was purely to enhance sexual performance and self pleasure. The intention for these projects was never fully clear. Our team made educated guesses. Still, as engineers, most of us didn’t question. Some did leave the project, taking a moral stance against our dangerous dabbling. I didn’t. I had to see where this would take us. Curiosity is what leads humanity to new ventures, and I was at the front seat of witnessing us reaching a new milestone in human evolution. Yes, we were designing our own future, something that no animal has ever done. That fact alone is what made it so incising.

I saw the potential from day one when we improved the mice. Now, knowing that this technology was in the hands of a private organization proved my noble dream difficult. I was powerless and could only act as the hand for Manageficient Enterprises and whatever end goal they had in mind.

The prisoner – sorry, volunteer – modification contracts weren’t the only form of income for the company. We worked on some grotesque solutions that moved the technology away from human modification. Generations ago, when Manageficient Enterprises was a small engineering consulting firm, they were bought by another company, Allen Oil Site Solutions. As it was, I’m unsure who was the parent company, Allen Oil Site Solutions or Manageficient Enterprises. Big business likes to shift companies around. Umbrella companies and sister companies matter little, just as long as the organization dodge taxes and lawsuits to maximize profits. With that, Allen Oil Site Solutions and Manageficient Enterprises were one and the same poison.

Our project for Allen Oil Site Solutions was to find a safer way to drill for whatever oil was left on this planet. We modified sea creatures who could handle the pressure of the deep sea, merging them with machinery to create biomechanical drilling units. The process was clunky, messy, and didn’t prove fruitful. The animals were in pain, their efforts slow, and the machines often broke, tearing from their skin and bone. We tried to reduce their pain sensors, increase their obedience, but nothing worked. Robots and human workers were better in the end, despite being more costly. Still, the project paved the way for something bigger.

Manageficient Enterprises has their hands in many industries. The CEO has specific interest in improving workflows for corporations. Taylorism to be exact. It’s the theory of breaking down every task into individual components – or gears – so any employee can achieve them. With our knowledge from the biomechanical animals, we created a solution that could improve people’s performance at their job. They wouldn’t be distracted by simple human desires, workplace attraction for example. Sorrow, project burnout, and soul-sucking work wouldn’t effect these new workers. The process was part of a larger picture: Conditioning Human Initiation of Transcendence. Also known as the C.H.I.T. age. The solution was injected over time and after a decade people would no longer be sick, sad, or feel any other need other than to fulfill their purpose at their job.

Conditioning Human Initiation of Transcendence changed everything. Manageficient Enterprises took their solution to market and corporations from around the world purchased their products. Governments obtained it for schools, hospitals, law enforcement, and eventually it became a policy for the injections to be given from birth. People didn’t question these injections because we could see the end result – global peace. People were compliant. No one argued about religion, political views, or anything minute differences. The solution reduced people to worker ants who understood the bigger picture of their new global colony.

War was a thing of the past, for a good decade in the C.H.I.T. age. Governments began to merge, forming fewer countries. More companies began to meld or were bought out by Manageficient Enterprises. Ten years of injecting this dope rewires a person’s brain and removes many of their sensors. We improved upon the failed biomechanical animal project and were able to fuse people directly into the computers. Tubes fed workers and extracted their waste. People were obedient to the alterations on their bodies and minds. They knew that their goal was to serve the greater of humanity: progress. The alterations were the beginning of transhumanism. None of them were recognizable to their former selves.

I hadn’t taken these injections, nor did my team. We knew what we were creating with this solution. Again, this is the advantage of being at the front seat of human discovery. Manageficient Enterprises insisted that we did, but our case was strong. We have proven our efficiency time and time again, being the spearhead of the gene editing process. There were many sectors under us who were modified with the solution. They focused on specific projects and needs, making variants of the solution.

Our team’s purpose was to focus on the grand design of humanity. The CEO began to speak with me directly. We made specific injections for him, making him more beautiful, smarter, taller, younger, and so on – the perfect human. His colleagues, friends, and family were also given this specific injection, separating the working class from the elite. He discussed long-term planning with me frequently. The man – if you could call him that – wanted to breed these post-human sub species more efficiently. He wanted to increase their performance. The CEO also knew that planet Earth wasn’t going to serve us forever as our population kept increasing and we continued to remove nature from the picture. Our global colony was in jeopardy.

During our last meeting he offered me a choice for myself and my team. He was so proud of every advancement that we had achieved over the years that he wanted to offer me an option. I could join him as one of the elite, where I would be fed his injections along with the other worthy of the upper class. The alternative was to take the other solution, mutating me into the post-human sub species. He provided me with a fork in the road, and I had to make a choice.

The CEO told me there was no more room for humans on this planet. The new species were to rule. The workers were compliant, and willing to provide for the elite who were the best qualities of humanity. They were able to fully enjoy their senses and their sins, you could say. The downfall to the elite’s embracive modifications were the negative aspects of the human mind. It was something we hadn’t quite worked out yet. Anger, hate, gluttony, lust, and jealousy are powerful emotions they still had.

This meeting gave me the clarity I needed to understand that you couldn’t ride the middle line forever. Eventually you would be pulled in one direction or the other. The world had been polarized for many reasons in the past, but never for our ground-zero purpose in this universe. Should humans design their own evolutionary path?  I, personally, had the option to architect mine. My choice would alter future generations if I chose to have children. I could become an elite and embrace the diverged perks of being a god, or I could be forever contented helping the elite build their indulgent utopia. Transhumanism was happening before my very eyes and my passive nature ended that day.

I chose neither path. There’s always another option. Doing nothing is a powerful action that the CEO did not foresee. I told him that I would think about the offer and returned to the lab where I informed my team. The fact that they also chose to stay human for so long gave me some hope that they would listen to my rationality. They understood that we were given an ultimatum and we couldn’t keep coasting as we had.

They agreed to follow me, and we left Manageficient Enterprises, escaping into the underground of the global nation now known as the Society, ruled by Manageficient Enterprises. We brought our families with us, taking supplies, weapons, and removing any technology connected to the global web. We built our own network on a new frequency, letting us communicate safely. We learned there were others throughout the planet that resisted the C.H.I.T. era, denouncing transhumanism. Now, there were three types of intelligences on the planet: the elite, the workers, and us – the humans.

Of course, our choice did not sit well with the CEO or Manageficient Enterprises. Naturally, a war began. We were able to rescue children, and the few people who hadn’t been fully mutated by the solution. We bombed the elite’s facilities and factories. We hacked their infrastructures. They sent drones and biomechanical super soldiers – that I had helped create – to eradicate us. Yet, I knew how to counter them. We created our own solutions into bio-bombs that attacked their exploited genes. All forms of warfare played out, even the nuclear, leaving us in a charcoal wasteland of extreme heat and cold of what was once a beautiful planet.

The mind’s evolution plays a big role in what it means to be human. Of all the great apes, we use our brain far more than our relatives. We had reached a tipping point that split humanity, leading to disastrous results. I suppose a species’ split is the natural course. Everything evolves into something new. Sometimes this is a clear path from one species to another. Other times one species evolves into multiples, as did the humans. We, the humans, are still alive and reside under the surface of the planet. The elite went for the stars, seeing that the planet was destroyed. They took their workers with them.

Humanity is now trapped on a dying planet. We must leave Earth in order to survive. Unfortunately, we destroyed most cities, including the technology, leaving us at almost at ground zero. Human beings are resistant, and we built anew. We can dig through the scraps. It will take time and thankfully we aren’t starting completely from scratch. We have brilliant minds. We have tools. We will survive and either repair this planet or head for a new one. With any luck, we won’t run into the elite and the Society. Even if we do, they will have hell to pay. Humanity will survive, as we always do, because we adapt as our evolutionary roots deem it so.