The evolution of man

Ava limped along the broken sidewalk. Her back hurt from the pregnancy and her feet were swollen. Two more weeks she thought, and it would be over. She stepped carefully across a jagged crack filled with black water. The city’s maintenance crews were slow, it often took them a week to repair 500 feet of pavement. It wasn’t the hard work, if you had to do it, you could. It was the futility of it. Work meant nothing to the workers. The city was dying, contracting on itself and to fix cracks on a sidewalk that few if any would use made no sense. The mandroids would work, they had little choice. But the human controllers were listless. Lethargic. Projects stretched on until someone in central decided to move the crews elsewhere. Work was patchy, sporadic and uninspired.

She turned the corner onto the main thoroughfare, and things improved. Nearer the ministries, some appearance of normalcy still held. Trees were planted along the walkways. The road was smooth and black. The fences were upright, and the buildings, painted. You got used to sharp contrasts Ava thought. The closer you got to power, the better things looked, but out of sight, the decay was palpable. It rotted the people first, like cancer, then everything around them collapsed.
The pavement smoothed out and she moved along a little faster. She glanced at her wrist-link, almost three. Her doctor’s appointment was for four and she still had to go past the ministry of work. Hopefully she would see the men.
She picked up her pace. If she hurried, she could stay for a few moments to watch. it was a beautiful sight. Dozens of them. Still mostly human though they were all chipped. They were strong and supple, muscled in all the right places. Almost….real.

As she drew closer she saw them gathering on the front lawn of the ministry of work. The building was designed in the colonial days. The concrete stood upright but the woodwork was damp and moldy after 300 years. A sixcrew of mandroids scattered on the roof moved with precision, pulling shingles and hammering a new ones in place. Under a shallow overhang Ava saw their controller, she was dressed in hospital green. Her arms bristled with psycontrollers, linked to a heads up display mounted on a visor. She would have stacked overlays for each of the units. Most controllers could manage five or six at a time. Ava had heard though, the HUD inventor could control up to one hundred at a time. Unbelievable.
Behind the fence thirty or forty men joked and punched one another on the lawn. The sounds of their laughter was musical, as rare as birdsong in the city. They were all shirtless and heavily muscled. All were crew cut and neatly shaved. Smooth skin, strong shoulders.
Beautiful. She thought

Ava slowed to a crawl. It was a delight to see them like this. After the culling, only a few remained and those were always fenced in, tightly controlled, chipped right after birth. The crescent scars over their right ear gave it away. Masculinity was too powerful, to unpredictable to leave alone. It almost destroyed the planet years ago. Wars, rape, destruction of ecosystems. Masculinity was toxic. When Lilith discovered the biointerface, the entire planet rejoiced. On that day they discovered, masculinity could be controlled.
The politicians agreed. Everything had collapsed around them. The currency, the population, and the planet. When Lilith showed them how to meld man with machine. everything changed. No more wars she told them. No more crime. No more hate and rape and destruction. Men were obsolete she told them. As it turned out, she was right and wrong, but by then it was too late to stop the culling. Millions died.

Ava paused. A tiny woman walked out in front the group of men. Her blonde hair framed a delicate almost elvish face. She had sharp features, eyes set like ice above high cheekbones. She strode confidently before them and raised her right arm.Ava could see the blue glow from the wrist controller from across the street. The joking and laughter from the men petered out. They focused on the little woman. She drew a visor across her eyes.

Something about the scene triggered a memory. Watching the old vidscreens in the Art museum. Ava remembered the long dead singer Maga in a similar outfit. The same visor, skintight black clothing. Only Maga was performing. This was real.

The tiny woman turned smoothly on one foot, raised both her hands above her head. As one, the men moved together, perfectly synchronized. She brought her hands together forming a diamond; index fingers and thumbs touching , palms outward. The men followed. She walked them through various poses, slowly twisting and turning. Breathing and releasing.
Ava was mesmerized. They were mind melded all of them, to the controller on the woman’s wrist. Moving as one, using an ancient Chinese moving meditation designed to calm, to moderate, to center mental activity. Sweat lightly covered their moving torsos. Their eyes were all closed Ava noticed. Their movements graceful but…mechanical.
What might have made them male was dialed way down. All that was left was a beautiful but broken thing. Unable to think for itself. Unable to decide or to act.
Or to love. Ava thought suddenly.

They were reduced to things. Useful. But empty the way the skies were empty. Empty the way the streams flowed silently because the fish were almost gone. Empty like the lawns and trees and forests behind them after the ecosystems collapsed. Empty like the human heart without love to fill it or give it purpose.
Ava looked up at the man shaped droids on the roof one last time before she headed to her doctors’ appointment. The child in her belly was male, the enclave rarely chose males to be born. This was a great honor. She began walking down the pavement. The ministry of Love was just ahead. The child would be born there . She could feel him move in her. His little arms and feet pressed against her from within like tiny electric shocks. He made her jump sometimes. How he wriggled! She could feel his birdlike heartbeat if she lay quiet. Maybe they would let her hold him after he was born. Oh, just to see his little crying face once, before the chipping. After that, he would be serene like all the male children. Attentive, quiet and compliant.
In time he would join the men on the front lawn.
She just hoped he could be happy.

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Hey guys, thanks for keeping up with my stories. I’m writing about a future we seem to be heading into. A world that some horrifyingly believe, can exist without men. The idea is for us to see what such a world could be like and wonder if we are on the right path. I think we can do better as a society for all of us, but only if we start asking the right questions. Are we doing stuff right? Is this the path the world should be on? What can we do better?

As always if you like my stories, please UPvote for them and follow me. I’d like to think I’m making the world a better place by showing us what the future could be if we don’t act today.
With love.
Links to all chapters below.
Chapter 1
https://steemit.com/writing/@jhagi.bhai/the-descent-of-man
Chapter 2
https://steemit.com/writing/@jhagi.bhai/the-evolution-of-man-chapter-2-ava-s-story-continues
Chapter 3
https://steemit.com/writing/@jhagi.bhai/the-evolution-of-man-chapter-3-in-the-belly-of-the-beast
Chapter 4
https://steemit.com/writing/@jhagi.bhai/the-evolution-of-man-chapter-4-explosions
Chapter 5
https://steemit.com/writing/@jhagi.bhai/the-evolution-of-man-chapter-5-escape

J.
pic courtesy Pixabay.