(Point of view: The Old Man)
Before the domes… the sky still existed.
A real sky, blue and beautiful.
Not those artificial ceilings projecting perfect colors. Not those white lights programmed to mimic morning. No.
An immense sky. Alive. Changing according to its whims.
I still remember it… For now.
Sometimes grey. Sometimes blue. Sometimes covered in rain.
At that time, people still died normally.
And nobody imagined that it would become a luxury.
I slowly raised my eyes towards the transparent tank in front of me.
The pale liquid rippled faintly around Beta-2's motionless body.
Her hair floated gently behind her. Her eyelids remained closed.
Peaceful.
Like a sleeping child.
I remained silent for a long moment before looking away.
"I hope it works," I murmured.
Returning to my work
My fingers trembled slightly on the illuminated keyboard.
Partly because of my age, but I was more attached to my memories.
At that time… I was nobody but I cherished that little life.
Just another technician.
An ordinary employee in a still young biotechnology company.
A ridiculous society to begin with, it always has been.
A simple laboratory could afford to promise medical breakthroughs in cell regeneration.
Immortality.
People were almost laughing at themselves; I didn't believe it.
Then "he" arrived.
"The founder"
The CEO.
Genius.
The monster.
The old man that I am still remembers the first time I saw him.
Tall. Calm. Always smiling.
A man capable of explaining the most terrifying things with the gentleness of a father telling a story to his child.
The rich adored him; he had found what humanity had always been searching for.
The end of death.
The laboratory still smelled of new metal at that time.
Screens illuminated the long, cold rooms. Researchers were running everywhere.
The media talked about nothing but us, a revolution they were calling it.
It's funny when I think about it now, I felt, how should I say, superior when talking about my job, even a janitor has dreams.
in the midst of all this…
There was her.
A little girl.
Sitting alone at the back of the laboratory.
This little girl always had a smile on her face.
Alpha-1, that's what they called it.
But that name was not the only one.
At that time… She still had a real first name.
I didn't even remember it anymore.
She must have been barely eight years old? I knew nothing about her, yesterday as today I never really knew her.
The old man closed his eyes for a moment and grabbed his head.
Project Alpha.
A biological revolution capable of halting cellular degradation in the human body.
Suspended aging. Accelerated regeneration. Elimination of diseases.
Everything was perfect.
I had become the most successful of my group of friends.
– Come on, sign us up a little higher!
And I always refused with class.
– the first wave is already booked, but I'll make an effort for you.
"You already texted him," murmured the woman who had lived in my heart since university.
It was a way to impress her, but now when I think about it I was very stupid and naive.
The whole world was euphoric.
Even governments were won over and injected funds into the project.
Wars almost ceased. Religions collapsed. Borders began to disappear.
Humanity believed it had won, man believed he had won.
Until the day I learned that the project was a failure.
The treatment was not stable.
The first official human experiment…was his own daughter.
Alpha-1.
Out of habit, I had slipped inside. I should never have seen that
This child was lying on a huge table, but she remained calm.
Terrified, that's how I would have been.
She was asking where her father was.
Again. Again.
But he… was watching from above behind a window.
Smiling.
As if he were watching a successful experiment before it even began.
I clenched my jaw slightly and walked backwards, as calmly as possible I wanted to slip away.
But… I ran into him.
Everything seemed to be working.
The cells regenerated perfectly. The wounds disappeared. The organs did not age; I enjoyed running for miles.
Alpha-1's father became the most powerful man in the world in less than three years.
The treatments were widespread everywhere, and obviously with these counterfeit products.
The first problems appeared, the fake capsules were blamed, there weren't thirty-six thousand solutions.
Not everything was going in the same way,
Minor memory lapses were normal. Strange behavior. Emotional disturbances were supposed to be lost, not increased.
The topics sometimes became… different.
As if someone else were inhabiting their bodies, I found myself drawn into this story, eliminating the variations.
Immortality? No, he was just holding back death.
We were dying from the inside out… The memories were deteriorating.
Emotions returned abruptly during the neurological reset phases.
And each emotional return destroyed the brain a little more.
The subjects forgot and started again… A life in a loop
Immortals slowly dying inside themselves.
The world should have stopped.
But it was already too late.
Because once humanity had tasted the fear of dying…
No one wanted to go back.
The ultra-laughs became even richer, and we, who had saved a lifetime, ended up at the bottom of their golden world.
Domes. Perfect cities. Controlled. Stable.
Environments capable of slowing down the mental deterioration of subjects.
The sky gradually disappeared behind artificial structures.
The outside world slowly collapsed; I was there to see it.
Ha ~ I've seen an entire evolution, an entire era, I wouldn't give up my memories for anything in the world.
Because deep down…
This world was based on a lie that I know.
I like being in the know.