Chapter 2: A Certain Maintenance Worker’s Monologue, Part 2

My name is Daian Fortuner. In a world abandoned by its god, I continue polishing his throne even though he will never return to it. Of all the maintenance workers in the world, my existence is the most absurd. I spent hundreds of millions of seconds in pointless activity before I happened upon that baby.

He was a miraculous survivor of the lost European Empire. I had neither the obligation nor the authority to raise him. However, in addition to my maintenance and inspection responsibilities, I have a duty to protect any human being inside the tower. I could have reported it to the tower manager and let him handle it. However, I am the only machine in the tower that moves. Thus, I had an obligation to protect the baby until someone arrived who could be entrusted to do so.

Thus, I needed to supply the baby with the necessary nourishment for life support. Thus, I had an obligation to clean his excretory organ after he defecated, because he could not manage it himself. Thus, I had an obligation to dress him in clothes to keep warm and prevent him from dying in the cold temperatures. And, I had an obligation to induce a sound sleep for the preservation of his mental balance by humming music to him when he cried from loneliness.

I prepared everything. The factories still ran. They were the fruits of an ancient empire. With water, air and light, they could create any substance. Food, beverages, clothes, beds, sheets, and toys that would rattle when shaken... I needed designs to fabricate those things, but fortunately I had the data for that. I could perform the necessary duties for his protection without any difficulty. I had spent 315,360,000 seconds—about ten years—during which no one came to take him in.

To be honest, raising him was a little... No, it was a lot of fun. For a long, long millennium, I had done nothing but steadily perform maintenance. Compared to that, a human baby was surprisingly entertaining. After one year, he stood up. After two years, he spoke. After three years, he was able to communicate with me. And after five years, when I left for my tower maintenance rounds, he followed me.

Such fun! He never tired of watching me. So I decided to discharge one more duty. In case someone finally came to retrieve him, I decided to impart knowledge to him so he might easily form relationships with others. However, I could only use data stored in the tower to give him knowledge of ancient Europea, which had perished long ago. I taught him all the knowledge I had: science, math, physics, engineering, chemistry, medicine, pharmaceutics and astronomy.

Europea had perished, but what had happened outside the tower since? Were they beginning history all over from the beginning? If so, perhaps this child was the only recipient of the knowledge that was the pinnacle of progress and which no one else inherited. Well, that didn’t matter.

“Why did Europea perish?”

He asked me this question one day. It was an honest question. I imparted more knowledge and he greedily absorbed it. Why had the empire perished despite its omnipotence? It would be strange not to wonder about this.

“Europea sought a god. Do you know what a god is?”

I taught the boy by directing questions back at him. The computer banks said this was the best way to insert knowledge into a human being.

“Something absolute?”

He answered correctly and to the point. Such a god was different from the gods of religion. A god was something absolute and infallible, and capable of judging everything correctly.

“Europea sought the absolute. To be correct, it sought something that would secure the absolute.”

Something that would make right what it deemed to be right. And make wrong what it deemed to be wrong. And separate light from shade and white from black. Furthermore, it was a being that would make the people obey.

“People cannot rule themselves. Conflict arises and wars occur because division and reunification are the nature of life.”

Nonetheless, the people of Europea would not give up. They sought the absolute, longed for god, and for the honor of being god’s people.

“So the Europeans decided to become gods together.”

“What do you mean by together?”

The boy was tilting his head in incomprehension. It was understandable. To be honest, this had even been hard for me to understand.

“The part of human beings that makes them human is surprisingly small.”

Genes are the blueprints within the human body that determine the human form. Only 3 percent of those genes are different from other creatures and make human beings what they are. At the same time, the people of Europea believed something purely human existed inside the spirit.

“What is a god? It is something that transcends humanity. People who are purely human are no longer human. They are superhuman. And the Europeans concluded that the superhuman was god.”

The people of Europea cybernetically enhanced their brains and synchronized their spirits. More than ten million people were joined into one, as if thereby summoning a god. They connected the god-like component that existed within each human being to finally create a god.

Inside this tower existed a dense body of information believed to be a god and enshrined in a giant server. And it provided all human beings with accurate, complete, and absolute answers. The people of Europea, “God’s people,” acquired perfect stillness and absolute peace by living in all ways as God told them, from morning to night, and from birth unto death. Thus, the people finally obtained the ultimate freedom.

“The freedom to renounce freedom.” Release from the necessity of making a choice.

“Their god decided everything and they lived accordingly to their last breath.”

“That’s right.”

The boy looked as if he had heard something horrible.

“How could such a country perish?”

Once again, the boy asked. However, its meaning sounded slightly different this time.

I purposely answered him as if offering a riddle.

“That’s easy. They incurred God’s wrath.”