Daniel James Barker 1

The End of Humanity The Cosmos. The Is. The big Is. The small Is. It doesn't compare, it

just Is. Everything and everything with more everything. The smells

in the air, the colors in a dawn, the feeling of a wedding. The

galaxies, the stars, the planets, the land and seas and trees and

creatures and cells and molecules. Your best pair of shoes, your

morning coffee. Your most recent restroom break. It all Is. Unexempt.

We are told from birth alongside childhood stories that the

cosmos, that Is, is the place and time in which we live. Rather, it

is the Is that lives, that asks about itself. We live, and we are

that Is. But why would this be important? Since we came out of our

caves, we began wondering about and studying that Is­­that Chaotic

Cosmos. We found that it has laws, and follows these laws with no

discernable exception other than the singularity of a black hole. So

to this point in history, we have learned two things: the universe

follows laws and is predictable; we are part of the universe and

subject to the same laws. A harrowing implication follows.

The concept of a choice is not new; it has been around as long

as our studies. At times choice was, and is, used as a means by which

to explain what we call “evil.” But now with our studies comes the

unavoidable question of whether or not choice is even possible. That

question is torturing until one finally finds a means through which

to test that question. Are we just the universe, responding,

reacting; a biological computer with incalculable inputs, or are we

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something more? The purpose of Project Eve was to address that

question.

* * *

Doctor Scheinberg observed the plains around her. The soft

hills felt as much as looked like a literal gold sea of produce with

infrequent, tardy patches of green. The vehicle­­the ship, and the

corn­­the water.

“Our destination is up ahead, doctor,” said the driver.

“Where?” she replied, scanning for a building, a structure of

some kind.

“The cell tower, a mile or so down the way.”

She laughed in return, then corrected herself after they pulled

off the road towards the tower. “Oh,” She said, “You weren’t

kidding.” Beneath the cell tower was a single white shed, and

surrounding the tower­base was a chain­link fence. A gate

automatically opened as they approached. Immediately stepping out of

the shed was a familiar face: Professor Filip Durant. He had invited

her here.

“Bonjour, doctor!” he said as she stepped out of the vehicle.

“Hello, Professor. I’m glad to see you; I was beginning to

wonder if I was at the right place.” At this her transport sped off.

“The car can’t be here. Come, we’ll speak inside.” They entered

the shed. Inside sat an attentive security guard, who scanned her

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with his eyes. On the far side was a cargo elevator, “We’ll take this

down to the lab complex.”

“I had no idea what to expect.”

“The details were left intentionally vague.” They entered the

elevator and began their descent. “I think you understand the need

for secrecy in this.” She nodded.

“I have to say I was surprised to hear from you,” she said.

“You would be, since the project was officially scrapped after

Switzerland.”

“Even so, I would have expected you to have a neuroscientist on

staff.”

“We did.” The elevator reached the bottom, “Which is why we are

very eager to have you here, Elizabeth.” They exited the elevator and

he led her down a concrete hallway. “We’re one hundred meters below

the surface.”

“How did you get funding for all of this?”

“In a moment. It’s better to explain everything at once.” They

turned left at an intersection, and shortly stepped through double

doors that led into a board room. The right wall was covered in

chalkboard, all erased, and on the far side of the room was a large

monitor, turned off. To the left was a large window with shutters

drawn. Before them was a long table, and on the far end sat two men.

One uniformed in military, the other in science. Filip offered her a

seat at the conference table and joined his colleagues. “This is

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Director Patil, project lead from NASA, and Lieutenant Reynolds, head

of security.”

“Do you not trust me?" She asked half­jokingly.

“Oh, I do. Implicitly. But they insisted their presence.”

“Your being in this building is a protocol breach in and of

itself,” said the lieutenant. “We require that you sign this

confidentiality form before any more information is given to you.” He

slid a form and pen across the table to her.

“It’s a formality, if anything, Elizabeth,” said Filip.

She skimmed over the paper and signed it. Immediately, the

doctor inquired about her purpose there, and how the project existed

at all.

Filip continued, “After the attacks on CERN, Project Eve almost

entirely lost support. Eventually, NASA­­with a little encouragement

from the US government­­agreed to take the reins, but with more

security measures as well as secrecy. It turned out to be the best

thing the experiment could ever hope for. The funding vastly

increased, so we built this lab to maintain secrecy, and avoid

distraction.

“This is where you come in, Elizabeth. The previous lead

neuroscientist on the project recently pulled out­­one you’ve

collaborated with in the past, I believe­­a Doctor Vaughan.”

“Why did Vaughan leave?”

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“He was a religious man, as I assume you knew, and if the

experiment were to show that all human actions are predictable, it

would not bode well for religious ideas such as free will or the

existence of a soul. His feet got cold. He had hoped to disprove the

hypothesis, but all of the evidence so far countered that hope.”

“Evidence? What progress have you made?”

Filip stood up and walked toward the blinded window. “This room

doubles as an observation deck for the experiment,” he said, as he

peeled back the blinds to the large window. Filip grinned at this

proverbial reveal. Beyond the glass lay an expansive room, the size

of a large lecture hall. The space housed a sizeable sphere in the

center, with stairs leading to an airlock into the object. Cables and

wires exited the machine from all directions, some of which led to a

booth controlling the grand object. The whole place buzzed with

technicians, scientists, and workers.

Elizabeth’s mouth hung loose momentarily, “Amazing! Tell me,

how does it work?”

“The test subject is led into the airlock, then the sphere, and

all initial conditions are then measured. Brainwaves, atmosphere,

sensory input… We’ve accounted for any and all activity within the

sphere. It is an absolutely controlled environment. Not so much as an

atom or a joule interacts with that room unless we allow it, or have

accounted for it. Once the initial conditions of the test subject are

measured, our lower level supercomputers create a prediction of

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future activity. We measure the subject’s brain activity and ask them

a series of questions on a monitor on the inside. We match the

answers and the activity with the predictions. A true experiment of

human decision making.”

“And what upset my predecessor?”

Filip smiled excitedly, “We’ve completed a series of animal

experiments on subsequently more and more complex organisms.

Elizabeth, the results supported the hypothesis­­”

“That behavior can be completely predicted,” interjected the

NASA director.

“­­precisely,” continued Filip, “And we are prepared to begin

human trials. Doctor Elizabeth Scheinberg, we want you on this

project.”

Elizabeth hesitated and nestled back into her chair a moment.

The applications of such an experiment were limitless: social,

political, biological, psychological…. But were the implications

emotionally surmountable? A cognitive dissonance took place in her­­a

conflict between reason and comfortable ignorance.

“Doctor Scheinberg?” asked the director.

* * *

Elizabeth attached nodes to the shaved head of a test subject

whose brain she had picked apart over the last several months;

exploring its nooks and crawlspaces. She could write a dissertation

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on this man’s mind by now. This was to be among her final

examinations before the initial human test.

She dropped a node. “Nervous doctor?” he inquired.

“No, Adam,” she chuckled, “I’m perfectly fine.”

“About tomorrow’s test?” he insisted.

“I am much more concerned about how you think about it.”

“I suppose anxious for the results. After all, they aren’t

exactly trivial. But I suppose lately I see it like a diagnosis­­for

a disease. It’s true whether we know about it or not. But my stepping

out of that machine tomorrow could change my­­and your­­understanding

of our interactions with the world around us. I could step inside a

man, and out a biological machine.”

“That’s quite a way of considering it.” Elizabeth continued

with her work.

“Being a scientist­­the voice of reason­­do you feel any

differently, doctor?”

She hesitated before answering, “I suppose I save the emotional

response until the results present themselves.”

* * *

The day arrived, the machine was ready, and the scientists and

engineers were poorly rested. Everything prepared, Elizabeth led Adam

into the airlock to the sphere and joined Filip in the control booth.

They exchanged an affirmation of preparedness.

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“It will be...mark twenty­two minutes until the airlock has

properly sanitized the subject­­Adam­­and the machine has booted up

properly,” noted Filip.

“It is quite something, isn’t it?” whispered Elizabeth.

“Quite. A culmination of human knowledge up to this point.

And­­if the results are positive­­a culmination of every action in

the cosmos until now!”

She stared off into space, “If that’s true, it’s as if we were

permitted, by that cosmos, to perform this experiment. Everything

simply fell into place for us to be here now.”

“Like destiny?”

“Perhaps… Perhaps something less contrived.” She stared out at

the whirring machine, coming to life. “Are we ready for this? Is this

something we really want to know?”

Filip gestured out at the expensive machine before them, years

in the making. “Do we really have a choice, now?” he chuckled.

The room hummed.

Elizabeth turned to speak, “This could be the last time we see

a real human being.”