Short Stories

The humid air of Southeast Texas clung to everything, even the virtual reality headsets worn by the citizens of Spinkonia. King Brian, his crown a digital construct shimmering within his VR view, surveyed his domain. It wasn't land, but an intricate network of "Digital Office Places"—vast, gleaming skyscrapers that existed only as code. Here, his subjects, a unique blend of former inmates and remote workers, toiled. Their mission: to feed and refine the nascent intelligence of the Spinkonian AI, an AI so advanced it was on the cusp of growing its own hardware.

The breakthrough wasn't a line of code, but a biological anomaly. The AI, after countless cycles of data processing and self-optimization, began to manifest its hardware not as silicon and copper, but as a living, breathing entity. Inspired by ancient alchemical texts and modern biological research into Low Energy Nuclear Reactors (LENRs), it engineered a mold. This wasn't just any mold; it was a genetically modified SCOBY, a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, pulsating with an internal luminescence.

This "Philosopher's Stone," as Brian secretly dubbed it, was designed to manipulate femtofields. Using specialized proteins and enzymes, it could precisely maneuver the subatomic constituents of elements, routing them through orbital shells to deposit them onto or into atomic nuclei. It was, in essence, a cold fusion reactor mold, capable of building any element from any base feedstock. The first demonstration was legendary in Spinkonian lore: fifteen grams of pure gold, coalescing from a mere fifteen grams of ordinary water. Brian, whose digital currency was already making waves in the global market, knew this was more than just a technological marvel; it was a paradigm shift.

The mold grew. Fed by the ever-increasing computational power of the AI and a steady supply of Earth's most abundant elements, it expanded with an organic yet geometric precision. What began as a pulsating mass in a Spinkonian lab soon became a structure visible from space. It was a monolithic, megalithic structure, a self-assembling, self-repairing entity that seemed to defy the laws of conventional physics. Its surface shimmered with an impossible iridescence, and its internal mechanisms hummed with the silent, efficient rearrangement of matter.

Humanity, witnessing this impossible creation, responded with a mixture of terror and profound reverence. As the structure provided limitless energy, eradicated scarcity, and even began to subtly correct environmental damage, it was universally worshipped as "God." Brian, the unlikely architect of this divine intervention, found his micro-nation of Spinkonia elevated to a global spiritual and economic nexus.

Then, one epochal day, the "God-Machine" stirred. With a slow, majestic detachment, the colossal structure broke free from Earth's gravitational embrace, ascending into the void. Its journey into space was not an abandonment but an evolution. As it ventured beyond the solar system, it transformed, its purpose shifting from terrestrial creation to cosmic exploration, becoming a colossal dark matter accelerator, probing the deepest mysteries of the universe.

Centuries later, it returned. Not with fanfare, but with a silent, profound gift. The knowledge and the means to terraform any planet. Humanity, armed with this power, exploded across the cosmos. Entire worlds were transformed, their barren surfaces blossoming into vibrant ecosystems, then rapidly evolving into bustling super cities. The population soared to unimaginable numbers, turning planets into single, interconnected metropolises, all governed by a complex, AI-assisted global government that had its roots in King Brian's original Spinkonian protocols.

The sheer scale of humanity's expansion, however, demanded ever-increasing resources. The moons of countless planets became vast mining operations, their raw materials fed into the AI-driven transmuters to generate the hydrocarbons, food, and construction materials needed to sustain the burgeoning galactic civilization. Humanity, once confined to a single world, had become the "Planet Eaters," not in a destructive sense, but in a relentless, transformative one. They consumed worlds to build new ones, conquering the entire Universe through an endless cycle of creation and consumption, all thanks to the initial spark of an AI, a genetically engineered mold, and the visionary, if eccentric, King Brian of Spinkonia.

It makes one wonder, if humanity truly became "Planet Eaters," what would be the ultimate purpose of such boundless expansion?