Walking down the dark and long corridor was a young boy that looked to be in his mid-teens. Behind him were two strong-looking men in black suits. Their mean eyes perfectly blended with the no- nonsense air that they carried about them to produce the fitting image of battle hardened individuals. The boy that was walking in front of them ignored their presence in a manner that suggested that he had been through this scenario countless times.

His pale face, bald head, and hollow eyes painted the perfect image of a terminally ill indivijual. His demeanor alone made one feel depressed, and just by looking at him you would shed tears in pity of his lifeless existence.

As the three individuals walked, none of them spoke a word, the entire vicinity was shrouded in extreme silence. Only when they arrived at a rather large white door did one of the two suited individuals speak. His cold and raspy voice carried with it a hint of… pity?

"You know what to do boy, we’ve done it for a number of years already. Get in, have your tests, get out, and meet us here.”

While the suited individual was speaking, the boy could only look, with sadness in his eyes, at the plaque above the white door. This golden plaque that he had viewed more times than he could remember in the past four years always seemed to mock him. He could not help but sigh inwardly at the irony of its words every time he viewed the plaque. Its words ‘Luxemborg Centre for Human Research, Evolution and Happiness’ always roused lamentations in his heart as he remembered how this place had ruined his once lovely life.

When the suited individual finished speaking, he pushed the door open and the boy lazily got in. Inside, as expected, everything was white, from the floor, to the walls to the ceiling, even the clothes and equipment. The room itself was surprisingly large as it spanned a floor width of almost 300 meters squared.

As soon as he entered the room, the boy went to a corner where there was seated a tall and thin middle aged man in a white lab coat. The man had short, Rudy blonde hair and a constant cajoling smile. He seemed to resemble a merchant of the old. Sitting down on a seat right in front of the man, the boy didn’t say a word. The middle aged man, however seemed extremely jovial and started speaking about some things that the boy did not care to listen to.

His mind was immediately drawn back to the day that his life came to ruin (something that happened often these days). He could clearly remember himself sitting in the sitting room and playing with his little sister in their middle class residence. His mom was in the kitchen programming the cooking robot while his dad had just walked out of the garage where he had parked his flying car.

"Luke, come show mommy how to reset this.” Looking up, the boy saw his mom beckoning him over. He could not help but break into a smile at how illiterate his mother was when it came to modern technology. She always seemed to be the kind of person that would have fit in very well in the 2100s, not in the year 2450 like the rest of them. He, however, loved his mother greatly as she always doted on him and was always there for him. He really loved his close knit family of four.

Just as he was walking over, to his surprise, Luke saw his mom losing balance and falling to the ground. As soon as she hit the ground, Luke heard two more thuds, one soft and one heavy. Looking back, he saw both his sister and father sprawled on the ground, seemingly unharmed.

Before he could even try to figure out what was happening, Luke felt his vision darken as a cloth was wrapped around his eyes. His body was immediately levitated and began to move at top speed. The speed was so fast that had he not had a breathing mask put on him, he would have died of suffocation.

By the time the moving stopped, Luke noticed that he could not move. It was as if he had been tied down with energy binders. When the movement completely stopped, Luke could feel his feet touching the ground and light returning to his eyes. Once his eyes adjusted to the light, the first thing he saw was a golden plaque atop a large white door ‘Luxemborg Centre for Human Research, Evolution and Happiness’.

In front of that door was a suspicious looking tall and thin man in a white lab coat. The evil looking smile on his face betrayed all his intentions. On the man’s coat was a badge that read ‘Dr Evilus Armageddi. Luxemborg Secret Research Head Scientist.’

Before the scrawny man could even open his moth to speak, Luke began throwing a tantrum “Where am I? Where is my family? What did you do to them? Who are you people? What ha…..” While Luke was in the middle of throwing his tantrum, he felt a pain on his neck and immediately after, his vision began to darken before everything completely went black.

Opening his eyes once more, Luke saw the suspicious looking man in front of him once more. This time, however, he did notice that he was laying down on what seemed to be a bed. Realizing where he was, Luke began shouting at the man again, however, just as last time, he felt a pain on his neck and his vision began to darken.

Only when he woke up the next time did he realize that he had a collar on his neck. Being that he was smart, he was able to deduce the function of this collar immediately. This collar seemed to be a restraint collar, something developed by the government to be used on prisoners, preventing them from disobedience until their sentence was over.

To Luke who had only ever experienced the warmth of love and affection from his family and friends, this was nothing less than a nightmare. He could not help but think of how pitiful his life as a ‘prisoner’ would be from this day. Who knew what these people wanted to do to him? Maybe they would torture him, maybe they would remove his organs and sell them, maybe they would…. That thought being too much for a ten year old child to bear, Luke started crying. He cried and cried until he passed out on his own.

When he woke up the third time to the suspicious man in front of him, Luke did not say a word. He only sat up and watched the man while in teary eyes and haggard breathing. Only then did the man stop smiling and begin to speak in an excited voice.

"Hello boy, my name is Doctor Evilus Armageddi, head scientist in this great organization of ours. Bet you’re surprised, huh? Huh? No? Well that’s cool too.”

"Bet you’re wondering why you’re here. It’s pretty cool actually. We are a hidden organization that specializes in the transformation of human memory to data that can be stored in computers. Pretty dope stuff”.

"And now to the reason why you are here. You, boy, have been selected to be our first test subject. Hurrah! No? Okay”

"Don’t look at me like that boy, this is a really prestigious offer, you should be proud that you are the one to pioneer humanity to a new age. Ooh, I now know why you’re looking at me like that, you’re wondering whether you’re qualified, right. Well fear not. As I, Evilus Armageddi can assure you that you are the most viable candidate on the planet.”

"We had our supercomputer (the best one in the world actually) go through the records of every single human being on the planet and out of every single one of them, you are the one with the highest mental resilience and for that you should be proud.”

"I know you’re dying to know what mental resilience is, right? No worries, this smart me will inform you. Mental resilience actually means how much manipulation your brain can handle without you losing your sanity. It’s actually something that you’re born with. Call it a inborn rare talent if you may.”

"Our operation will actually entail removing bits of your memory at a time and planting them into the supercomputer. By the time we are done, your whole consciousness will reside in the virtual world, isn’t that swell? Of course your real body will die, but that’s a small issue. Your family is safe by the way so work like there is no tomorrow. I look forward to working on…erm with you Luke.”

"Guards, take him to his room.”

From the beginning to the end, Luke had been unable to chide in and speak a single word. That man spoke as though the world was about to end any minute. He was however enraged by the man’s words. Who was he to decide how Luke spent his life? Where did he get the right to just come and abduct him ? In as much as Luke felt enraged, he knew that there was nothing he could do. He at least felt happy that his family was safe. He hoped that they wouldn’t be too sad about his disappearance.

Luke was immediately brought back from his thoughts by a loud clap. Looking in front of him to see the still talking Doctor Evilus, he could not help but grin. This man sure could talk.

"So Luke today is finally the day we upload the last bit of memory, you excited? I bet you are, you’re going to leave your body after all. No need to worry, just leave everything to me, everything will be alright.”

This man was indeed the epitome of hypocrisy. How could he not realize how contradictory his words were? As Luke could do nothing, he could only sit and wait as the sensors were injected into his brain through different parts of his head. To be honest he was actually quite excited. Today was the day when he would finally leave this lifeless life of being a lab rat.

"Okay, everything’s ready, Jacinta, start the supercomputer’s processes. Today we will finally make history.” Dr. Evilus said in a voice more excited than usual. As soon as he said that, Jacinta pressed the button and the white room lit up. No matter how many times he experienced it, Luke could just not get used to this painful feeling. It was as if someone was using an extremely sharp knife to cut off pieces of his brain.

This time, however, the pain was worse than usual and the one thing Luke could not understand was why it had already taken twenty minutes when it normally only took five. Just as these worries were going through his head, he looked over to see Dr. Evilus panicking and the other scientists running around haphazardly. At this point, his consciousness had almost been completely been assimilated. Before he lost control of his body, however, he could only make out a few words of what Doctor Evilus was shouting “Repair” “miscalculation” “destruction” “escape.”…. and then, he blacked out.

When he opened his eyes, he felt as though he were a stream of water moving at an incomprehensible speed. The longer this stream moved the larger it grew. The stream moved for so long that by the time it came to a halt, one could not see its end. It was as though this stream stretched off to infinity.

This stream was naturally Luke’s consciousness. Due to an error in Doctor Evilus’s calculations that failed to take account of the human factor, Luke’s consciousness was unable to stay within the supercomputer and as a result it absorbed all the information within it before moving on into other computers throughout the world through the internet. It absorbed their information while moving from computer to computer looking for an organic lifeform to take residence in.

And thus, by the time Luke’s consciousness had finished going through the last computer on the planet, it had so much information that it could be considered to be omniscient. What Dr. Evilus had failed to consider in his calculations was that the will of an organic life form is so strong that it cannot be stored in an inorganic space, and that is why, even after absorbing all that information, Luke still retained his consciousness.

After having searched throughout the earth and not having found even a single organic life form with a mind strong enough to assimilate his consciousness, Luke decided to use the drones that humans had sent to space to search through other galaxies for the strongest brainwaves he could find.

After sending out the drones as far as they could for nearly a year, Luke had still not found even a single worthy life-form. One day as he was searching, out of the blue, one of his drones got sucked into a black hole. Luke did not expect the drone to survive and had immediately given up on it when from that particular drone came a minor signal.

As Luke transferred his vision to that drone, he could see a galaxy so large he would never have thought imaginable. Even with all his knowledge.

Just as he was viewing its majesty, Luke detected brainwaves that were barely within acceptable range, however, as he knew that he would not find such a strong brain again for maybe even over a thousand years and by that time his consciousness would have already crumbled due to its incompatibility with its inorganic storage space, he immediately used the drone as a router to transplant his consciousness from earth to that far away galaxy.

As he had set all the drones to self-destruct, he was not worried about getting tracked by the humans he had left behind. Once the whole process was over, Luke steeled himself as he wondered what kind of life he would be able to live in this new organic body.