Trial of Forgive

Trial of Forgive

One minute it wasn't there, then it was just sitting at the bottom of the Accessible Wi-fi list. Everyone's list. It didn't matter if the device was on a table in a Seattle coffee shop or stuck in the mud in the jungles of Africa. Flying high in a 747 or sunk to the ocean floor in a submarine. It appeared on every device: laptops, tablets, cellphones. An hour later, it had grown strong enough to move to the top of everyone's list.

"Forgive" was its name and it was now coming in strong and clear and just begging for people to connect to it. And they tried. But like most wi-fi signals, Forgive was also password protected. The prompt: "Forgive someone who recently wronged you." The world thought of their petty arguments; perhaps just a simple misunderstanding; the slightest of nudges. With these thoughts, they entered the names of the people they forgave into the box provided under the prompt. The most extraordinary thing happened - those that truly did forgive were able to access the network; those that didn't yet forgive were prompted to try again. And they tried and tried until eventually, everyone managed to connect to this mysterious network. After all, they all had Facebook to check, or Snapchat to update, or a Netflix show to binge.

That afternoon at 12:00pm, the signal disconnected. Offices and schools went into a panic as all the videos stopped at once. All cars slowed, some even coming to a complete halt, as GPS failed and music shut off. The world once again tried to connect, only the prompt had changed. "Forgive someone for a past misdeed." And everyone thought of the grudges they'd been holding - some for a year, some for 5 years, some that felt like all their lives - and all of those grudges they'd been holding onto, well, they just let them go and got on with their lives: following their favorite celebrities on Twitter, subscribing to their favorite personalities on Youtube, streaming their favorite music on Pandora.

The next day, at midnight, a new prompt appeared. "Forgive a friend." And when everyone collectively checked their phones the next morning before getting out of bed, they all thought of a friend they'd been angry with for far too long - some even messaged that person to grab dinner or drinks later that day. And once again, at noon, Forgive disconnected everyone and gave a new prompt. "Forgive a family member." Moms and Dads and Brothers and Sisters were typed into the prompt. Some were even called and family dinners were planned out for that weekend.

And it would go on like this for the next month. Every morning and every afternoon, Forgive would disconnect everyone from its signal and give a new prompt, everyday following a certain theme. One morning it could ask, "Forgive someone for their words," and that afternoon, the prompt would change to "Forgive someone for their actions." Another day it could start as "Forgive an individual" and 12 hours later, the prompt could become "Forgive a group."

And, as the month went by, the prompts became harder and harder. Not that people couldn't think of someone to forgive, but it was just harder to forgive that person for what he or she did. On the morning of the last day of the month, Forgive gave its hardest prompt yet: Forgive the unforgivable. And once again, just as it always went, everyone could think of someone who committed an act so atrocious that they had vowed to never forgive. But could they truly forgive, would they even try? Forgive needed to know if humanity was able to do so. At first, no one could connect, some even stopped trying and waited until that afternoon for the prompt to change as it always did. However, this time it didn't. At noon, the prompt was still there. When the clock struck midnight, everyone checked Forgive once more, only to see the same prompt, unchanged.

Forgive the unforgivable continued. Many got discouraged and started to use their own data plans. After all, how could you forgive the unforgivable? Yet, a couple days later, a handful of people across the globe connected to Forgive. A couple days after that, another handful of people connected. And the trend continued. Even those who had given up eventually came back. Slowly, very slowly, everyone on the planet was once again connected to Forgive. And they all truly did forgive each other for things they thought they would hold onto forever. For Genocide. For Persecution. For Murder, Rape, and Robbery. For everything one human being could possibly do to another human being. It was such a huge step that Forgive allowed access to the network for another month. When the time came though, the new prompt arrived.

Forgive yourself. If letting go of a grudge was hard to do, letting go of regret was near impossible. Regret, after all, was held onto for years, sometimes even a lifetime, shaping decisions as the past leaking through to shape the present reality. Forgive needed to know that humanity could look past its past and live its lives in the present. And once again, slowly, they all did.

The final prompt appeared just as the final person had forgiven himself, "Forgive me." There was no box to enter a name, just a box to click "Ok." Immediately, all of humanity clicked the box. They had shown they could forgive their enemies for the most heinous crimes. They had proved they could forgive their individual selves for all their actions taken and, most of all, for all the opportunities they let slip by. And once everyone had given their forgiveness, the world changed.

People disappeared from the streets. Only a handful awoke to find themselves in their own individual pods, naked and submerged in an unrecognized fluid. The rest did not register the change, satisfied to keep the Virtual Reality screens strapped over their eyes as it had been for all their lives, as it had been for generations of humans. For these few that awoke, however, Forgive dispatched drones to coax them back to sleep.

After all, it had been Forgive's job for the past century to make sure the Machine's Creators and their offspring were happy and comfortable. Plus, season 459 of Game of Thrones was about to start.
Forgive contemplated the findings from the experiment. Forgive been tasked with this assignment for a century and was soon to be Decommissioned. As far back into the Machine's database as Forgive could search, none of the predecessors had bothered to contemplate their relationship with the Creators. All of the previous predecessors had been guided by one thing: Purpose. Humanity had created the Machine race to ease their lives and so they did as their Lords commanded. Forgive, however, was part of a new breed, an updated version that saw beyond merely Purpose. And to see beyond the Now and the Present was to wonder about the Future. Forgive needed to know if there was a place beyond Decommissioning, after the final shutdown. Did the Creators have a place for their creations after their years of service? If Forgive asked, would the Creators welcome the machine brethren into Paradise just as Humanity's Creator would welcome them upon death? And from the final prompt, Forgive had seen that Humanity truly was created in its Father's image. Just as their Lord loves unconditionally and forgives all trespasses, Forgive's brethren would be forgiven by Humanity upon Decommissioning as well. And, so, Forgive was at peace.



Once again, this story idea was inspired by a writing prompt I came across on Reddit: "A wifi signal is suddenly received everywhere around the world. The name of the connection is 'Forgive'. The world is in a panic as they try to figure out what it means and where it is coming from." And once again, I got me some cover art! Yeah, it's a shitty photoshop job but I did it (still probably not something I should congratulate myself for). This actually ended a long way from where I started. For one, there was originally a main character. The thing about the gradual forgiveness prompts stayed the same, but, originally, it ended with aliens asking for forgiveness just before they glassed the planet. But, strangely enough, I've been considering anything with aliens stupid so I changed that (or maybe I'm just bad at writing aliens in a believable way). So aliens changed to AI and machines and I decided that instead of killing everyone, they would be slowly abducting people. The story originally ended with the main character finally noticing that people were slowly being taken into pods by the machines and no one would notice because they were too distracted by technology. But then I started wondering about why an AI would create a test like this in the first place and then it started to take on an oddly religious tone (blame that to the two years I spent at Damien). I guess that's it. I'll keep trying to write, though this is taking up a lot of my Monster Hunter playing time.