The year was 20XX. The coronavirus epidemic had crippled industrial infrastructure, toppled the global economy, and caused more concentrated death on American soil than any event in recent memory. Claire Elise Boucher, Canadian musician better known by her alias “Grimes” (“Miss Anthropocene” in her later years) has just given birth to the King of the World, X Æ A-12.
The ascension of X Æ A-12 to the Throne of Earth in the years following the initial coronavirus outbreak continues to be a topic of great interest to historians today. While many academics as well as official archival documents indicate that the rise of the New Technocracy was planned throughout the two decades directly preceding the outbreak, some have argued that the weakened state of American democracy in the early 21st century had allowed for corporate entities, backed by massive wealth and technological prowess, to completely subvert traditional means of information dispersal and assume control of nearly every aspect of human life practically overnight. Those who argue this point of view often assert that the American way of life had long primed the population for such a dramatic and sudden takeover, but no concentration of wealth and power before TESLA had the scale of information nor the audacity to actually go through with it. Of course, to speak of any of this on unencrypted networks is grounds for protein recycling.
Though project Archangel would not be revealed to the public until April of that year, many point to February of 2021 as the point of transition from the old ways to the new reality. After the failure of the second mass vaccine trial revealed that the virus adapted too quickly to be subdued by a catch-all solution, despair began to creep through the population of the United States. Few came to terms with then President Donald Trump’s indefinite Stay-At-Home order. The president’s popularity at that point was either at an all-time high or an all-time low depending on which information distributor you asked. Either way, civil unrest was reaching a fever pitch, and the pandemic seemed all but uncontainable. Mass panic followed. The president’s sudden disappearance from the public eye near the end of the month was given hardly any attention amidst reports of a deluge of violent crime, mass sickness, and police overreach. By March, the military began to enforce quarantines in and around urban centers throughout the country. What followed was the Month of Silence, the great gestation period during which every major ISP blocked access to anything but the most basic functions of the internet. Television use, which had been declining steadily for years in the early 2000s, surged once again. It is interesting to note that almost all of the big name online shopping outlets went largely unrestricted, though shipping times were slowed considerably. Other methods of communication between households were essentially impossible. If there were any significant revolts during this period, the knowledge of them has been lost to time.
The people of the world experienced true quarantine during that fateful March, and we have experienced little else since.
On April 3rd, 2021, the machine turned on. X Æ A-12 announced his supremacy through neural-link, and the automated ration service began the very next day. Despite being a child of barely a single year, X Æ A-12 possessed the same capacity for language as a grown adult. Survivors from this period often recount that his voice manifested in their minds as a kind of childlike laughter, calming and innocent and filled with mirth. His first words, as dictated through the neural-link, are forever transcribed upon the footer of every major digital hub:
“History is dead. You are relieved of the bondage of your fathers.”
It is difficult to imagine that pre-Archangel world, that place of labor and hardship teetering upon the precipice of climate disaster. It may be hard, but do not look on these primitive peoples with condescension. It was through their mistakes that the children of the future discovered the means of escaping the boundaries of the physical and finally manifesting paradise.