A short SF-Story from Barry Redhead - Things to come - Sf from B. Redhead

The atmosphere of Jupiter hung like a grime-streaked, multicolored shroud before the observation deck. No stars. Only an endless expanse of ochre, crimson, and bone-white—cyclones that could have swallowed oceans whole. The extraction window had been missed by 178 days. Not six months, as the imprecise bio-vessels would calculate, but 15,390,000 seconds. For Unit 734-K, logged as “Kael,” this was an unacceptable breach of protocol. She felt a foreign friction within her—an irritation she had cultivated during her final decade on Planet 3. Earth.

“Atmospheric entry in T-30 seconds,” the ship’s AI pulsed. Its voice was pure resonance, devoid of the artificial personality an organic mind would have projected. “Docking with bioptic module 734-K confirmed. Life support stable.”

The hatch slid open with a whisper. Kael stepped inside; her perfectly rendered human form—a middle-aged woman with sharp eyes and a piercing gaze—slowly dissolved in the weightlessness of the airlock. The illusion of Homo sapiens fell away, revealing the silvery shimmer of her true anatomy. Her limbs lengthened into slender, elegant arcs; her oval head glistened. She was Kael once more, Primary Observer of the Delta Sector. And she was furious.

On the command deck, the other members of the retrieval fleet awaited. Vax, the navigation analyst, and Zenon, the security coordinator. They remained in their bio-shrouds—standard humanoids adapted for high-density atmospheres. Vax took the shape of a distinguished, elderly man; Zenon, an athletic woman.

“Forgive the delay, Kael,” Vax began, his bioptic voice calm, measured. “The extraction route required restructuring due to unforeseen planetary alignments and the mandatory evacuation of Xylo-colonists from Gamma-7. We had no alternative.”

Kael felt her internal plasma-fields contract with rage. “No alternative? We were promised half a bioptic decade for this field study! Six months to analyze the mechanics of a so-called civilization. And you left me to rot down there for a full year! On a planet infected by a mental virus worse than nuclear fallout!”

Zenon placed a bioptic hand on Kael’s arm. “Report, 734-K. What of the other research units, 732-M and 733-T?”

Kael shrugged—a gesture she’d picked up on Earth to broadcast her frustration. “Missing. Unresponsive for over four bioptic months. I suspect... I suspect they were crushed by the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of the species. It is the only logical conclusion.”

Kael ignited a holo-projector. A high-fidelity simulation of the White House as it stood in 2028 materialized above the deck. A flawless facade masking a fractured reality.

“I was embedded within the political marrow of the so-called ‘United States’,” Kael explained, her silvery fingers tracing the light. “My access was gained by mimicking an ‘advisor’ to the incumbent. A descendant of a prominent political line known as ‘Trump the Second’.”

Zenon arched a bioptic eyebrow. “Does the regime of the first ‘Trump’ still persist? Our 2026 data suggested a total constitutional collapse.”

“Persist? It has metastasized,” Kael replied. “The elder Trump, under the pretext of ‘national security’ following strikes on Iran and Cuba, declared martial law in 2026 and liquidated the electoral process. He ruled until his biological expiration. His successor—the current president—has shoved his father into a corner of the Oval Office. A frail specter in a wheelchair. There the old man sits, watching his son and smiling. A ghastly, vacant leer of approval while his heir drives the nation into the abyss.”

Kael switched views. The interior of the Oval Office. An old man, pale and brittle, staring blankly at a young, hyperactive man sitting at a monumental desk, his eyes glued to a small, glowing rectangle.

“The annihilation of the education system was the tipping point,” Kael continued. “The first Trump abolished the Department of Education in 2025. Critical analysis vanished overnight. Schools and universities ceased teaching abstract or complex thought. Content was... streamlined. Simplified until it hit zero significance.”

Vax’s features shifted into a mask of mild astonishment. “This contradicts every evolutionary model in the database. A species actively retreating from knowledge is a galactic novelty.”

“It was the perfect soil for the ‘screens’,” Kael said, her voice sharpening. “Those tiny rectangles they call ‘mobile phones.’ These creatures spend 14 to 18 hours a day staring into them. They consume ‘clips’—thirty to ninety seconds of pure algorithmic sludge. Fluffy animals, nonsense challenges, or other bio-vessels praising ‘products’ as the ultimate peak of existence. All without a shred of logic.”

Kael projected the data-drifts. The curves were harrowing. Attention spans had cratered by 80% since 2020. Empathy had plummeted by 60%. The capacity for complex problem-solving was effectively extinct.

“The content grows dumber because the consumers grow dumber,” Kael analyzed. “It is a self-reinforcing loop of ignorance. Moscow, Beijing, London—the pattern is identical. The humans in those cities stare just as intently, consuming the same mental sewage. Global consensus achieved through universal idiocy.”

“What about their primary survival functions?” Zenon asked. “Hunting? Gathering? Procreation?”

“They are too occupied with their rectangles,” Kael replied dryly. “I have seen them walk into lampposts because their eyes were locked on a screen. I have seen parents neglect their offspring to watch an ‘influencer’ perform a ‘challenge.’ My forecast: in less than a century, they will be too stupid to feed themselves. They will have forgotten how to maintain the very infrastructure that keeps them alive.”

Vax looked at the grimy simulation of Earth spinning before them. “Ecological suicide through intellectual atrophy. A unique manifestation of the ‘Great Filter’.”

“Exactly,” Kael said. “My colleagues, 732-M and 733-T... I spent my final weeks looking for them. They were brilliant, but they were also empathetic. I suspect the sheer; all-pervading rot of the species plunged them into cognitive shock. They couldn't bridge the gap between humanity’s potential and its actual self-destruction. They likely chose voluntary de-materialization.”

The three beings fell silent. The hum of the ship was the only sound in the void. Earth spun beneath them—a world whose fate was sealed not by fire, but by a wave of ignorance they had fashioned with their own hands.

“We cannot colonize,” Vax stated, his bio-shroud dissolving to reveal his true, slender form. “The mental toxins are too virulent. Restoring the biosphere would take thousands of bioptic years.”

“Estimates are 2,000 to 5,000 years,” Kael added. “By then, the ruins will be swallowed by the greenery, and the elements will have purged the stupidity from the soil. Only then can we return without the risk of cognitive contamination.”

Zenon nodded. “Understood. Initiate the jump. Course: Planet Kryon-4. Resettlement is authorized there.”

The Xylantrop—a frozen flame of silicon and plasma—began to move. It was no mere machine, but a living vessel winding through the dark. It was the ultimate craft of a civilization that had learned to flow with the universe rather than try to break it.

Kael looked at Earth one last time. A glowing, sickly marble, its surface flickering with the light of a billion tiny screens. The people down there were likely celebrating a new cat video or screaming about a viral challenge. They had no idea their planet had just been struck from the interstellar maps. Not because of a war, but because of a diagnosis.

“May you find your light in the glass,” Kael whispered, her voice returning to the pure resonance of her kind. Yet, a trace of sorrow lingered—the final, inexplicable human glitch she had carried away from Planet 3.

The ship vanished into hyperspace. Earth was left behind—a self-imposed cage of endless, whispering screens.