《Technomancer: Genesis》


 Explosion

    The lab was fraught with activity. Today was the day they were to test the Large Hadron Collider. Being one of the youngest scientists, Michael James Faraday was ecstatic he had been waiting for this for a long time. Man was finally able to ascertain if the God particle, Higgs boson did exist. He reminisced about his childhood, he had no recollection of the events prior to the ones he had when he was three years of age. But from that time onwards, he remembered everything vividly, every single book, journal and word uttered by those around him were stuck to the recesses of his mind. It was convenient but is equally annoying for him as the babble of stupidity also stuck with him. This would have made him a sociopath if not for his empathy toward orphans, misfits, and broken things. He was left to an orphanage at the age of three with no recollection of his background and only his name after all.


    Michael James Faraday, he was very intelligent as a young boy and would get bullied by most of the children, he only had one friend, Edward Shilling. Sadly, his friend could not understand him. He did not want to play like the other kids. He despised sports and physical activities that he deemed useless. On the contrary, he did not despise the chores they did, or the desire to read books. He worked hard and it came easily to him because of his ability to remember everything. He was curious about his parents and thus he tried as best as possible to find clues on those who had abandoned him. As a child, he tried to somehow find out about them, and so he started to look for clues of them. He started with the only keepsake that was given to him: his name. He discovered that he had the same name as the chemist Michael Faraday. Wanting to find out more, he read and read about him and it made him start on the path of science.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    In his early years, he was secretive and tried to conform to social norms so as not to be ostracized. He feigned every psychology test and tried to make his grades as average as possible lest he attract attention and suffer more bullying. But he changed when he entered high school as he wanted to attract top universities to vie for a scholarship. He entered MIT and got a degree in Physics, but he never did find out anything about his parents, which was peculiar since he successfully penetrated government databases and archives to try to find clues of his parents, but it was as if they never existed. He couldn''t even find them on his birth certificate.


    All this came to pass and now his only pursuit was science. His fascination with finding out about his origin jumped to finding out how everything began. It was somewhat of a religion to him, it was his calling to try to find meaning in his world. Although he never did admit it to himself, he used science to fill his inner void. Now, he was standing here at the Large Hadron Collider. Lost in thought, staring at blank space. He did not notice the flashing red lights. He only heard a big bang as he felt the searing pain.

 Birth

    Michael''s body ached for an instant. He felt like his whole flesh evaporated in a blink of an eye. Excruciating pain engulfed his entrails and insides as his eyes melt out of their sockets. But all of this was just for a split second. His cognizance drifted into the blackness of the abyss.


    As his awareness wavered, his thoughts contemplated the age-old question: " Was there life after death?"


    Ideas he had never contemplated before this incident struck him. Was he dead? But if he was, isn''t death the cessation of life? Why was there consciousness? What is the mind? How did it all start? How did it begin? Where is he going?


    He never gave this a sliver of thought before this incident as he deemed these things as metaphysical and pseudoscience. This event had shaken him to his core. Had recalled that his stubborn colleagues who tried to "enlighten" the masses by insisting the absence of any deity. Which, in his opinion, had no point as the math pointed to the basic belief in a god lowered the chance of cardiovascular diseases, lead people to contentment and an overall well being.


    Even if they were right, it was inconsiderate of them to take those benefits away from the believers. He himself was neither an atheist nor a creationist, both sides of the argument had flaws. The only reason the media portrayed that the atheists were winning was because they were a united front with highly educated backers. The creationists were a very disorganised mob with many religions proposing different origins, and since it was so, they never made concrete arguments, and only the Christians were taking the beating because they were the most vocal about creationism.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    These thoughts kept passing, he was in an emotional state; he felt confused and agitated, and even fearful. What if Christianity was right? The popular belief of one suffering in hell as an unbeliever was running through his mind. He had read many books including the Bible but there was no mention of anyone enduring in hell-fire for an eternity. He could not bear the thought of being tortured forever.


    Amid this panicked frenzy, he did not realise the warmth and cosiness that was clothing his torso. After the turmoil of thoughts that was bombarding his mind, he felt like he was being squished out. The sudden flow of cold air startled him because it still covered him in darkness and with the tumult of emotions, the immediate change of temperature and the frigid breeze engulfed his body.


    Michael wailed and sobbed but a set of warm hands touched his sensitive and fragile body, a warmth enveloped his skin. He tried to move to flail his arms and open his eyes to no avail. He kept grieving; the urge for crying was overwhelming him. He felt so helpless and desperate. This was a foreign feeling for him, this incident had made him so frenzied and experienced nothing like this before. After all this commotion, he was still, and the darkness and silence surrounded him once more.