“Has anyone ever told you about the giant blockchain in the sky?”

It wasn’t a question he usually asked new employees, but Anna Morgen wasn't just anyone. She was his first personal assistant. And this wasn't just any tour. Julian allowed the young woman to enter the elevator before joining her, and once the biometric reader accepted his fingerprint, he pressed the button that led to Sublevel 9.

Her raised eyebrows disappeared under thick chestnut bangs when he turned to face her, and a teasing light shone in her eyes. “A blockchain in the sky? I don't think the clouds are immutable.”

He lowered his voice as the elevator descended. “It went a bit higher than the clouds. You might know some of the other terms for it. The Akashic Records. The Book of Life. A permanent archive of all human existence.” His lips twitched into a smile despite his best efforts to maintain a conspiratorial tone. “Primitive people had primitive ideas. But what if I told you they were right?”

The elevator door opened before she could reply. Watching Anna take those two tentative steps into the corridor, he almost envied her. This was his project. He had seen it built from the ground up. Or rather, from the ground down. The stone that lined the hallway was cut from this very section, brought to the surface and reshaped before being returned and replaced. Ventilation kept the air fresh, but only so much as was needed. It couldn’t force out the scent of deep earth.

She steadied herself against the wall, and he waited. Her chest pressed against her blouse as she took in the subterranean atmosphere, and with each exhalation her cheeks regained some of their color.

“Sorry. I’m not sure what I was expecting.” She ran her fingers through that long brown hair as she looked around. “What were you saying? About those people?”

He sighed. Healthy hair or not, she had a lot to learn. That was fine. After what she said in her interview, he was more than happy to teach her.

I want to create a better humanity.

Nearly twenty years ago, when he was her age if not younger, he had that same thought. He hadn’t said it, not out loud, but the fact that she did was proof that people were changing. Evolving. Every hour between then and now had been focused on his work, but for her, he would start at the beginning. “Not the people. The idea.” Taking a step forward, he motioned for her to follow. “Come. I’ll show you.”

Her shoes made no sound as she walked down the tunnel. Sensible shoes, not those ankle-twisting abominations that some women wore. Nothing to distract from the resonance of his voice.

“For thousands of years, we’ve had this idea that everything is connected. That humanity has a collective consciousness beyond the superficial differences we see in the material world. And for thousands of years, we’ve ignored that.”

She frowned at him, a bit more steady on her feet now. “But that’s the whole point of the Universal Blockchain. One money, one world, one people. There hasn’t been a single war in my lifetime.”

A bark of a laugh escaped his lips. “And look where it’s gotten us. Twelve billion people with nothing better to do than dump more waste into landfills and bicker on social media.”

She hid her smile behind her hand. “I heard that years ago, someone put an AI replication of the Buddha on all of the feeds. Most people just argued with it.”

He hadn’t heard that one, but it didn’t surprise him. He might look into it later, but they had nearly reached the storage room, and he had a point to make. “There’s only so much AI can do when it works with people’s minds. Minds are limited. It has to be able to connect with the soul. And for that, it needs flesh and blood.”

Perfect timing. His fingerprint unlocked the door, and it slid open with a low hiss. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he escorted her quickly inside before more cold air had the chance to escape. The lights activated automatically, bathing the room in a dim red glow that allowed his assistant her first glimpse of his masterpiece.

Rows upon rows of bunk beds stacked four bodies high held his collection of human lives. Fully outfitted with wires through their brains and hearts, they were kept alive with saline drips in their arms. Her words came out as a gasp.

“What is this?”

He squeezed her shoulder before letting go, catching the scent of that lovely hair as he did. It was just like honey, and it stirred something inside of him that he hadn’t felt in decades.

“This, Ms. Morgen, is the next stage of human evolution. Or rather, the evolutionary dead ends that will clear the way for the rest of us. As the saying goes--” That honey smell lingered, and it took all of his willpower to keep his eyes away from her hips. How did the saying go? She was looking at him strangely now. He cleared his throat and smiled. “Survival of the fittest.”

“Wait, are these real people?” She moved toward the nearest bunk, reaching out to the figure on the bottom. It must have been an old one, already showing signs of desiccation.

“Don’t touch that,” he snapped before her fingers met the skeletal toes. She yanked her hand away, and he softened his tone. “It’s still alive, and it can’t be exposed to any foreign stimuli.”

She took a step back, turning away from the bunks. “It’s a person though, right?”

He raised his eyebrows. How long had it been since he considered that question? A glance at her face told him she expected a response. “No. Maybe it used to be, but now it’s a liaison between the Universal Blockchain and that big one in the sky. Their minds are in simulations, but their emotional responses are real. Instead of letting that electromagnetic energy fade into the ether, we collect it and convert it to mining power. Objectively, it’s a drop in the bucket, but that drop permeates every transaction in a block with essential humanity.”

The horrified look on her face surprised him. He reached out, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before adding, “Don’t worry, we have contracts for them all. They’re loving every minute of it.”

Her expression relaxed slightly, but the frown remained. “Why would they do this to themselves?”

“Why wouldn’t they? The early adopters spent half their lives hooked up to VR before they found us. They wouldn’t have recognized sunlight if it burned their eyes out. Once their energy spread through the Blockchain, the idea popped up in the minds of every Jack and Jill desperate for the chance to redesign themselves in their own image.” He grinned. “Besides, we promised them eternal life in there, and that’s a promise we haven’t broken yet.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “They look half-dead.”

“More than half-dead. They last a few days before they’re sucked dry. We can’t disconnect the simulation and return them to their bodies. The cost to repair that level of damage would be astronomical. But we never terminate without consent. They have what we call an extinction code. A personal passphrase that eliminates their consciousness when they speak it. The whole thing is very ethical.”

“You expect them to commit suicide? That seems like a cheap trick when they want immortality.”

He snorted back a laugh. “Nobody really wants immortality. Think about it. The sun burns out, the earth crumbles to dust, and there you are, floating in the void. Forever.” He shrugged. “When the body starts to fail, we stop harvesting and speed things up. Relatively speaking.”

She nodded, and finally, she smiled. About time. “I just have one more question. What happens when you run out of volunteers?”

I want to create a better humanity.

Remembering that sweet honey scent, he could think of a few things he would like to make happen, but this had been a straightforward tour so far. It was best to keep it that way.

“We’ll disconnect it. With each human sacrifice, pardon the terminology, it gets stronger. Reaches out to every soul on the planet through their daily transactions, and tempts the ones who can’t resist. When they’re gone?” His heart skipped a beat as he looked into her eyes. “The rest of us inherit the earth.”

Her smile faded as quickly as it came. Again his heartbeat pulsed off-kilter, but this time it felt cold in his chest.

“I don’t approve of this project.”

Her voice was so flat that for a moment, he was stunned into silence. He narrowed his eyes. “That’s--”

“No. I don’t approve. Thank you for your time, but I think I should leave now.”

His breath caught as a cough in his lungs, and he placed his hands on her shoulders. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. You signed a confidentiality contract, and I want to make sure you don’t break it. Everything you know stays in this building.”

The girl half his size stood glaring at him in defiance. He tightened his grip, but whatever crazy ideas she had running through her head held her chin firmly in place. “Let me go, or I’ll report you.”

He laughed. She was nine stories underground in a room full of breathing corpses, and she wasn’t even that special after all. Did she really think her life was worth more than the future of the human race?

“You’re not leaving. I’ll give you a nice secretary job, you can learn to make coffee, but you’re a part of this team. Are we clear?”

“No.”

His jaw clenched, and he slapped her across the face. Harder than he meant to, and when she slumped forward in his arms, he sighed. He knew what he had to do, but it would be such a waste to shave off that pretty hair.

She struggled as he dragged her past the bunks, and he kept one hand over her mouth. Not that anyone could hear her screams, but he didn’t want to listen either. Once he got the thiopental into her blood, this would be much easier. He held his finger to the biometric lock on the medical cabinet, and waited.

Nothing.

The girl’s body was shaking as he shifted her weight into his other arm. Maybe it only worked with his right hand. He uncovered her mouth, and the sound of her laughter broke free.

“It won't open.” She squirmed out of his grasp as he pressed his right index finger against the lock. “Not for you, at least. You don't work here anymore.”

He slammed his palm against the cabinet, his breathing heavy as he let his hand linger on the cold steel. His lips curled into a snarl when he turned. “What are you talking about?”

She stepped back out of his reach, his sweet young assistant hidden behind an impenetrable face. “The last time I saw you, you were thirty years old, wanting funding for a project to shape human thought with AI interaction. That was this morning. The idea was interesting, but I wanted to see what we were working with.” She smiled. “You failed our character test. Completely.”

Hot tears burned with rage in the corners of his eyes. He could barely see straight, much less think clearly. Thirty years old this morning? That would mean--

“You can relax, I won’t break confidentiality. This project needs to be quarantined.” She ran her hand through her hair, curling the ends around her fingertips. “By the way, you might have forgotten your passphrase. I hope you don’t mind, but I set it as a trigger for my team to wake me up. It’s Salvos Aptissimum.”

He didn’t have time to blink before her body dissolved.

Written for the Block-Chains Conspiracy Writing Contest hosted by @v4vapid, with many thanks to the wonderful editors at @thewritersblock!