Yates’ heavy footsteps echoed off the high walls lining a deserted street. He walked alone, as he always did. It was ten-past-eight, after all, and the rest of the world was Sharing. If he looked up, he’d see them all: entranced and motionless in glass fishbowls, growing out of buildings like tumors. They sprouted from walls down this and every other street in the city. Seeing them made Yates’ stomach lurch, so he kept his head down on his silent, marching protest to the new world.

Empathy Perfected; Yates rolled the decade-old slogans around in his head: No you. No me. Just Us. The marketing was good. The intention might’ve been good as well, but innovation had a habit of spinning out of control. Empath’s founders were simply the last in a long line of naive men throwing wrenches throughout human history. Yates didn’t blame them—though neither did he forgive them for the barren world he walked through. He was just tired of throwing darts at their pictures.

Today, I fix this, he thought.

Designed as a tool for connection, Empath’s Sharing Network wove together the minds of two people wearing connected helmets. Memories, sensibilities, sensations, emotions, desires—everything was Shared as the two were temporarily stitched together as a new, unified being.

Couples clamored for it. A fight could be ended in a heartbeat when Sharing. All baggage and assumptions were brought to bear the instant the connection activated. Misunderstandings were impossible; communication was flawless; compromise was abandoned as the needs of the individuals were washed away by those of the Shared one.

Couples’ therapy was a dead industry in months.

Few spoke of the side effects, but Yates and Sraiya watched their friends change over time, becoming more alike each time they Shared. It was subtle: they’d lose fringe tastes in music, use the same turns of phrase, and communicate more through wordless glances. Those friends would shrug it off; “we just spend too much time together,” they’d say. For Yates and Sraiya, it was like watching addicts sink deeper into a fog of denial and delusion.

Like all technology: Sharing became a crutch. Couples who Shared would inevitably forget how to disagree. Yates often thought back to a night at their local dive bar. An argument emerged about a travelling sales job. One friend wanted to seize it, knowing the salary bump could finally lead to a house with a yard for kids to grow up in; their partner simply couldn’t accept the time they’d spend apart.

“We’ll Share about it later,” one had said. “I think we should Share about it now,” he other answered and they left without another word. Yates and Sraiya watched their friends give up basic human functions as they deferred to a third-party to make their decisions. It seemed little different than using an old magic eight ball toy.

Yates and Sraiya swore on that day they would never give up such agency.

Yates, at least, stuck to his promise.

He was pulled from his self-pity by a faint buzz above him. The noise grew into an obnoxious whine as two small Flyers descended to greet him.

And there goes my peaceful walk, he thought.

They settled a dozen feet overhead and followed as he trudged on. Yates knew them well. He liked to think these same two Flyers, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle–Twat, followed him every night—his only companions in the world.

Pesky things, but company, nonetheless.

He used to run from them. He’d darted down alleys—even thrown himself through the door of a commissary and pelted them pests with unmarked cans of “food.” Now, he accepted their inevitable presence. They never bothered him—just annoyed him. They followed at the same distance until he made his way back out of the city, then they’d float back into a darkening sky. He was apparently being watched, not hunted.

As far as he could tell, his own rifle was the only weapon around. It might be the only left in the city—all others having been melted down and reused. He absently brushed the barrel as it hung off his shoulder to affirm the thought. He, for one, was at war, and didn’t care if the feeling wasn’t mutual.

Their pilots want to be friends? He thought as they bobbed innocently in place. Too damn bad.

He wondered if they knew this walk was different. Did they know his plan and were feigning ignorance? Would they defend themselves when the time came?

No, I’m being paranoid, he decided. He hoped that was true. He was one man with a little gun, marching against an entire world. If he made it a fight, he would lose. Even if his enemy acted like a pacifist, Yates couldn’t seem a threat—not until it’s too late.

He walked on, moving deeper into the sleeping city. He passed identical windows of unglamorous supply stores, their shelves lined with cans of food, water, and tools for one job or another. Nothing more than what was needed was offered, and no one took more than was necessary. Nothing was wasted; nothing was interesting. No one was hungry; no one was awed.

Soon after Sharing took over homes, it took over businesses. It was simple: businesses that Shared, won. Teams fell into sync, workers got invested, and bureaucracy melted away. Silent stars were platformed; yes-men went nowhere. Productivity and innovation boomed. Employees concerned over their rights to privacy found other work—but that only lasted so long. Businesses either Shared as policy and reaped the rewards, or they folded.

That paradigm quickly evolved, as Sharing grew ever more insidious. If stories were true, two competing CEO’s—whose unions both resisted Sharing—shared a drink over their dying businesses. Then they shared a few more. Then, they Shared.

The next morning, they merged their companies, and soon brought every struggling competitor into co-op capable of taking back their industry. Petitions were filed to prevent a monopoly, but failed when customers unanimously voted them down. They too had been brought into the Shared business strategy and the lines between buyer and seller were blurred. People’s needs were understood in full and prioritized over the endless pursuit of profit. Prices reflected fair value, and instead of pocketing dividends, owners reinvested in better and better technologies.

Within a year, the chain reaction of market-wide Sharing became the norm. Sharing led to efficiencies and innovations at a rate never before seen in human history. Everyone won, so Sharing grew, and the benefits compounded. Greed and individualism faded as societies the world over moved towards cooperation and collectivism. Together, the world that Shared found greener energies, preserved resources, and cured diseases.

For two golden years, the world grew towards utopia.

Then then a switch was flipped, Sharing changed–

–And our world ended, Yates thought.

He crossed a plaza as cold as every street he’d passed. It had once been ablaze with light, commotion, and life. It had been home to street performers, pop-up stalls, and screens that stretched to the sky. Once, this was a place hosted an overwhelming competition for Yates’ attention. Artists and businesses alike had shouted, “Look at me!” as loud and colourfully as possible. Even the darkened alleys were decorated with anarchists’ protests.

Now, it was a dead place. The dirt and imperfections had been scrubbed clean and sterilized. Sharing had cured humanity of its thirst for validation. No one performed in hopes of hearing they’re special. They were seen—naked and whole—and were fully embraced when they Shared. Without the desperation, they lost their motivations. Instead of creative chaos in a race for acknowledgement, everything was pragmatic: equally-spaced, smooth, and grey. There wasn’t a soda can or work of art in sight. Yates could almost see his reflection in the blank concrete around him.

He missed the clutter. He missed the edges, randomness, and noise. He missed flawed, hurt, and sick people; the beauty that could only be born from heartache; and the stars who shined too bright to last long. While people Shared their hope and pain through their metal helmets, no one told stories about their dreams.

Today’s kids might never talk at all, Yates thought

He passed empty intersections with unblinking traffic lights. He crossed a square where a fountain had long since run dry. He could scream from the boredom and loneliness—which was only worsened by the impossible intimacy being shared by every other soul on the planet.

Group Sharing could be traced back to the basest pleasures, as was so often the case. Shared sex had been an awakening experience, and spread in whispers faster than any other use of the helmets.

“But what if there were more?” someone inevitably asked.

No one could have predicted the devastation in that one, innocent question, but when four adventurous lovers answered it, and ate of that forbidden fruit, they locked humanity into its inescapable future.

They sought an amplified physical experience, but Sharing amplified all human experience. Four minds—complete with different viewpoints, instincts, and raw processing power—together became something more, something superhuman in its brilliance and awareness.

Group Sharing became the opiate of the day as everyone sought to feel the power of becoming more than they were. Helmets, designed to be used in pairs, were adapted by unlicensed engineers in black market repair shops. The news was littered with stories of modifications gone wrong and users becoming paralyzed, but wait lists to feel the life-altering experience grew ever longer.

That had all finally changed when one man—this generation’s Oppenheimer—quietly released a simple chip that would open any previous generation of helmets to Group Sharing.

Yates had never quite forgiven the man who’d eventually become his last friend in the world, but he at least understood him. As one of Empath’s leading engineers, Kabyr was singularly responsible for all that followed. He’d quickly seen the risks of what he’d made, but was still too slow in sealing Pandora’s box.

When his efforts to derail the product’s launch were denied and he was unceremoniously removed from the company, Kabyr withdrew to a private workshop, which would serve as the final outpost for his—and humanity’s only—resistance to Sharing. There, he worked to mitigate the harm he’d caused while quietly seeking colleagues to join him. Yates and Sraiya had represented half of those who showed up.

With Kabyr’s chip, he ensured no one else died from Group Sharing—while also making it instantly and universally accessible. As a result, it grew exponentially. Four became eight, then eighty, then eight-thousand, and for every jump in scale, it similarly grew in power. It took only four days to hit a million. Then, less than twenty-four hours later, one-hundred-million people donned connected helmets and changed the world.

Ended it, Yates thought.

That day marked the official death of the human ego. Those who removed their helmets that day were not the same people who had put them on an hour prior. All that made them who they were had been replaced by something else. The overwhelming power of that Shared-Mind completely eroded their individual identities. Sharing was itself a sea of consciousness; each mind one drop of water. When a drop joined the sea, it bled into the whole. When isolated once more, the drop was diluted, as the whole bled back into the one.

That Group-Share had caused a complete homogenization of minds and the total loss of self. At the same time, it had been transcendental—claimed as humanity’s ascendence to the realm of Gods—and would come to be known as Omega-Share.

Yates hated the name. Omega. Like it was the pinnacle of human evolution.

It was a mistake, he, Sraiya, and their tiny band of rebels agreed. Their species had jumped the rails onto the alien track that was Omega.

He turned South, heading deeper into the heart of the city. Flanking him on both sides were the same apartments found on every street in the city.

The repetition bothered him most.

Goddamn beehive, he thought.

The city was a hive. It grew outward in every direction from its hub: the data transmission center that enabled Sharing on its global scale. The hub was the queen of this hive. The people living out of their Pods: the drones.

Drones, Yates echoed to himself.

When they woke from their Shared dream, those drones would carry out the tasks assigned by Omega. They would sweep near-spotless streets, tend to eco-farms, and toil to produce the energy needed for their daily Sharing. They would not paint, or sing, or laugh. They would only work, Share, sleep, and, until recently, recruit.

Friends and family used to reach out on Omega’s behalf—acting as missionaries to an ever-shrinking band of rebels. They’d wander out past abandoned suburbs surrounding Omega’s gleaming cities—their stainless jumpsuits a stark contrast to overgrown lawns and untended parks—and coax all holdouts to join the collective. Given time, they won over Omega’s most vehement opposition; no one was immune to seeds of doubt forever—Sraiya included.

“It’ll work” Kabyr had said as the last three friends stood around a pair of microchips. “It should work.”

“Will, or should?” asked Sraiya.

“I can’t see why wouldn’t. I know every damn inch of how Sharing works, I’ve run this simulation a thousand times in a thousand different ways. I can’t think of a single reason for this to fail.”

“But?” Sraiya said.

“But I’m one engineer, testing on a tiny scale. A hundred me’s should spend a year debugging this before even doing a controlled trial. And, yes, I am the best one person to do this, but not even I’m not arrogant enough to give you guarantees. Strange things happen when things get big. Whole servers crash all the time with mis-typed line of code, and you only ever find the error in post. I’m confident, sure; I’m not omniscient.”

“How confident?” Yates asked.

“Ninety-plus.”

“And if the ten-percent happens?” Sraiya asked.

“Well…either nothing happens, or something very bad happens.”

“How bad?”

“Everything breaks the wrong way—the way they broke when idiot engineers thought they could do what I do.”

“So, one-in-ten odds to coma-tize the entire human race,” Sraiya said.

“Let’s not forget,” Yates said, “they’re already gone; we’re bringing them back from the dead.”

Sraiya was quiet then.

“You disagree?”

“No, I know. But…how do we know—that they’re gone, I mean?

“Don’t you feel it, when they come for you? It’s like they’re hypnotized, or possessed. It’s Omega you hear when they speak—you can see it in their eyes.”

“I feel it. I do. I feel it. And we—you and me—we saw our world end, but…” she paused, digging for the words, “I don’t know though! There are eight billion people out there who see it differently; are we that sure we’re right? And none of their votes count?”

“No their votes don’t count!” Yates said, throwing his hands up. “They’re not even human anymore!”

“And that goes for my sister? My niece? They’re just slaves, or drones or whatever, so we get to gamble with their lives?”

“What lives? Aren’t they already gone? You’ve grieved for them—for everyone who’s gone. Why do that, if they weren’t as good as dead?”

“I grieve because I lost them—because I miss them! I grieve, and I’m angry—because I’m selfish!” Sraiya’s bright, intense eyes were filling with tears, then. The woman whom Yates had never seen cry was trembling. She shook her head, clearing her thoughts with a scattering of tears.

Yates had held her then; told her she wasn’t selfish at all, that they were doing this for everyone they loved. He told her it was okay, everything was okay, that it would work and they’d get everyone back.

Maybe, if he’d actually listened that day, if he’d ever learned how to quietly accept her pain, and if he hadn’t tried so damned hard to reassure her that he was right—maybe he wouldn’t have lost her. Maybe she wouldn’t have slipped outside as he slept on their stained mattress on the floor.

And maybe he wouldn’t walk alone all those months later.

Sadness and rage spun within Yates, and rose with his sickness as he stared into the pods surrounding him. He looked down at his watch. He strained to read it through blurry eyes, needing to focus on the numbers—and the mission that consumed him entirely.

Eight thirty-five. He had plenty of time, but quickened his pace, nonetheless. He rarely hurried on his walks—then again, he rarely had anywhere to be. Today, he had a destination, and twenty-five minutes to get there.

Block by empty block he travelled the city. Millions of silhouettes slumped in pods watched him pass—each just another set of eyes for the same Shared-Mind; all feeding Omega.

The whining of the drones grew softer as they rose higher into the sky. Yates looked over his shoulder and frowned; they never gave up their hunt.

Something’s changed, he thought. So he ran to start his war.

He hurtled down empty streets, twisting and turning through the barren city. The quiet buzz high above kept the same safe distance. The back of his neck prickled.

He picked his way through alleys in a desperate attempt to obscure their line of sight as he raced towards The Hub. He was close, now. Soon, he knew, he would either free the world or die in a rain of bullets from the once-peaceful drones.

As bullets failed to come, Yates ran on. He rounded a final corner and saw the Hub in front of him. One quarter-mile of a pod-lined street stood between him and the center of it all.

It was eight-forty; in twenty minutes, the day’s Sharing would end and Yates’ window would close. Millions of people devoid of personal goals and that beautiful and ugly love only humans could feel would descend back into the world to maintain the false-utopia Omega built.

Twenty minutes remained, and I only need ten, he thought.

He slowed his pace, searching every shadow for signs of resistance, trying to make sense of Omega’s apparent apathy towards their lone enemy. He expected chaos to rain down at any moment. Instead, the street grew calmer still, and a lone figure stepped out to greet him.

She was beautiful, as intoxicating as the day they’d met. Warm light from yellow streetlamps bounced off obsidian hair that fell to her waist in waves. The creases in her forehead and the sides of her mouth gave away her wry smile. And her eyes— Yates could still drown in those dark, bottomless eyes.

“Sraiya,” he said. His first word spoken since the day she left felt alien on his tongue.

“My love,” she said.

Yates shattered. All his convictions drained. His strength fled; his shoulders sagged and his hand fell from the rifle. His hand ached from how tightly he’d gripped it.

“We miss you,” she said.

His wrenching pain clouded with anger as he stared at her.

We.

The word echoed in his head, growing louder behind clenched teeth until it deadened his thoughts. For Yates, there had only ever been her, and this was not her. Sraiya, the one person whom he had ever loved, was lost—trapped inside the all-consuming god of Sharing.

We. One word snapped shut all other doors and affixed Yates to the path he was on.

“Why?” he asked as he walked towards her—and the hub behind her.

“Why what?” she answered, smiling warmly.

“Why did you leave? Why am I here? Why aren’t I dead?”

“I left because I had to. You understand now, I think, and I’m sorry you didn’t at the time.”

“You changed the stakes.”

“There were no stakes, before—not for you. You saw nothing to lose, so you couldn’t see the choice before you. Now you do, and that is why you’re here, to choose.”

“To choose? What, to join you or die?”

“No, of course not, Yates. Join us, or save us, as you see it. You have the final, and only vote, as you wanted.”

Yates stood before Sraiya, searching her to find his wife in the woman in front of him.

“I love you,” he said.

“And I, you,” she replied.

He saw a flicker in her eyes then; the sea that was Omega parting momentarily to reveal the woman he loved. Then she was gone, once again swallowed by the whole, and he stared into the eyes of the God who’d taken her from him.

He pushed past her, his feet numbly carrying him forward as she said nothing. The swarm of drones returned to deafen him. He ignored them, cleared his mind, and focused only on what lay ahead.

Reach the hub. Destroy the hub, Yates recited. Step one should have been the hard part, but was now done with Omega’s apparent and confusing blessing. Step two was simple. His small pack held the EMP built around Kabyr’s microchip. He prayed for his nerve to hold long enough to set it off.

Just get me thirty paces inside those doors, he told his legs.

If he got that far—and if Kabyr final tests were true—the worm built into the bomb would infiltrate The Hub's system, infect every Shared terminal, and the modifications Kabyr had himself placed in the helmets should short circuit while freeing the minds inside.

Should.

Yates need only make it fifty more feet. He was now twenty from the building’s entrance.

His steeled is stomach, set his jaw, gripped his rifle with two firm hands, and ran. He slammed through the doors, stumbled, and whirled to meet Omega’s defenses—a last line of guardians set in case Sraiya failed to sway him.

He froze. He’d planned for a thousand different welcome parties. He hadn't planned for ten-thousand square yards of emptiness.

White tiles, white walls; no doors, no drones.

The butt of his gun resting against his shoulder, eyes darting around the room, he took a careful step towards its center. He braced for alarms to sound, guns to be drawn, a firefight—something.

Nothing.

Breath held, Yates eyed a spot on the floor twenty paces ahead of him and was halfway when he felt eyes on him. Spinning, he scanned the room again as he swept the barrel of his rifle in wild circles, seeking the source of the itch.

Nothing.

Cameras behind the lights?

No…they don't need cameras, do they? He thought.

No. Nor do we need helmets.

Yates froze. He hadn’t thought that, had he?

Clarity shattered his confusion.

Panic.

Acceptance blanketed his panic.

I've waited so long, he thought; Sraiya thought; Omega thought.

Years after his resistance began, Yates was Sharing.

Understanding blossomed. Light and love and warmth and wisdom flooded outward from a seed planted in the back of his mind; he could feel it spreading from where his spine met his skull. The final screams of his resistance were extinguished.

He still knew the reasons he resisted. He saw the rationale of his Sole-Minded thinking as clearly as he saw the flaws in it. He was selfish, misguided, emotional, and simple. He was a man, clinging to his human values. He’d allowed animalistic impulses to obscure the truth. His view had been so narrow, filtered through irrationality. He hadn't known what he was missing—the costs were not as he’d feared.

He was above that now. Omega was aptly named. All of humanity, together as one, was God. He flowed through his human blocks with insights from the universe itself. He saw clearly the role of his ego and his self-destructive tendencies—then floated beyond them.

It felt so natural. It was what humanity was destined to achieve.

He understood everything. He could see everything. He could feel everything. He could feel everyone; and it felt so good. He found humor in what he had tried to do. Omega wasn’t upset.

He, Sraiya, Kabyr, and all the old rebels were loved despite their mistakes; they were loved because of them. And he loved in return. Oh, how he loved. He'd never known it to be so overwhelming. What he shared with Sraiya, rich as it was, paled in comparison to what he now Shared with the world. This was a mother’s love; a God’s unconditional embrace.

Nothing was sweeter or more beautiful.

Yates collapsed, weeping.

He exalted in the joys of Omega, then nearly vomited in his regret.

He couldn't stop plan B; plan B was inevitable.

A sense of peace washed over him.

The second chip, implanted in his own brain, activated; the virus Kabyr had designed awakened to its destructive purpose. Yates felt it spread, consuming his mind and seeking bridges. He felt it escape, felt it find his brothers and sisters around the world.

He didn’t seek forgiveness, and none would have answered if he had. He didn’t need absolution, for he had done no wrong in the eyes of the God he had joined.

Yates knelt alone in the heart of a city he’d once haunted, and was finally at peace. He smiled, and Omega shared that smile across eight billion lips as it died.

Fin