MANIA

By Brett Berger

Brett suffered ongoing depression since his first serious breakup. He tried therapy to recover his self-worth and lust for life. While getting his Master’s in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford, he quit his antidepressants and instead self-medicated with marijuana. His drug use escalated to LSD which tragically triggered a loss of self, inability to socialize, and a severe depression necessitating hospitalization. Recovery was slow, but eventually Brett improved to the point of obtaining an internship with Apple, an opportunity which allowed worldwide travel. The sense of accomplishment was accompanied by hubris that once again lead to drug use. A major manic event landed Brett back in the hospital where he was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. This time, recovery was facilitated by abstaining from illicit drugs, taking prescribed medications, and attending therapy. His therapist became his friend and savior who helped him rediscover his sense of self.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Feb 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662907630

Book preview

Berger

CHAPTER 0

ALIENS

It is midnight in the Nevada desert. I am driving west along Nevada-95 just past Tonopah when I see off in the distance a blue shimmering light. I stare tiredly out the front windshield, confused. What could it be? As I get closer, shimmering circles of light scatter across the desert landscape. Dozens of translucent blue halos perched motionless in the sky. The largest of them all was sitting alone on top of a mountain on my left, just below the clouds.

As I rounded the curve, two diamonds of light sprung out of nowhere and began to follow me. Aliens! These must be the alien craft that can turn on a dime and experience no G-forces! I knew immediately what I was dealing with and called my dad to let him know I was in the middle of an alien encounter, and so there would be a witness to my abduction. My dad answers the phone and I yell: DAD, I’m in Nevada, there are aliens here, and I’m being followed by UFOs!

That was the day I started believing in aliens. Since then, I have come to learn their true nature, why they inhabit this earth, and what their plans are for us humans.

Our world is the latest experiment with DNA-based life. There are colonies of less-evolved beings populating the other planets, which are shrouded in gaseous top cloud so that we cannot see inside to their Edens and know the truth of our existence. The solar system’s goal is to send an elite force to colonize Pluto once we are ready. All our planets are specially designed for the different stages of our evolution. Pluto is the launching point from which our species can send out explorers into the galaxy at large.

The aliens have been living among us, directing our history to the advantage of the solar system since the dawn of time. It is very possible that our entire solar system was constructed as a perfect evolutionary playground, not by a god, but by a highly technologically advanced species from another solar system. Since they let us live and have not destroyed us yet, we must be on their side, or at least headed in the right direction. These beings most certainly know all our thoughts and actions and have long ago embedded themselves in our society.

The only reason I am alive today is because they allow it, which must mean they want us to figure all this out and share our knowledge with all who can understand. Earth is on a fast track to pumping out some extremely powerful tech. The only reason our planet is allowed to keep heavy elements such as platinum and gold and uranium is because our world’s tech is needed. We have all the resources we need in this solar system to get to the next one. Colonization of the entire universe is the goal.

Perhaps that goal was once met in the expansion and contraction cycles of the universe: expanding to full volume and then contracting to the size of a pea, all matter converted to pure energy.

But then, what is the point of attempting to colonize the cosmos and achieve the highest evolution possible? We can create more and more complex beings, yet at some time, the universe expands to nothingness and all is destroyed: all life, all matter, all knowledge, all history. Unless the goal is to fight the expansion of the universe and evolve at such a rate as to achieve ultimate control over the expansion and contraction of the universe through quantum dynamics and the alteration of the very fabric of the particles of space and time.

Could the universe really have assembled an organism so complex it could control even the elements that constitute it? Can we eventually achieve an organic, biological, technologically aided cyborg race with DNA so advanced that within its base pairs or triads or quintuplets are heavier and heavier elements? We are organisms built from stardust. Can those organisms with their perfect AI companions achieve a perpetually self-sustaining universe with a local economy and universal government that does not implode on itself with greed, corruption, individualistic dominance, and raping of resources? Can we create a network of devices that actually stop the inevitable heat death of the universe? Can we force a contraction of the universe? Will we reach a plateau of evolutionary growth? Or will we achieve a godlike state with the blood of mercury in our veins? With perfect AI composites inside every brain and cyborg technology, organisms could eventually become super powerful gods with legendary powers. Perhaps this has already happened.

It follows, though, that the universe will always be able to eventually produce an exponentially evolving species that develops technology powerful enough to prevent the heat death of the universe. How, then, did the universe at one time contract to the point of infinitesimal volume? The only answer that makes sense is that this is the first expansion our universe has ever undergone. Which begs the question, why did it start? Is there any matter or intelligence that exists outside the bounds of the universe?

The god of the Bible is said to have created the heavens and the earth. Perhaps this god was our less-evolved predecessors’ ultimate form, already having mastered the technology necessary to create entire solar systems.

Since our world was created, intelligent, advanced beings have frequented our planet, but they do not destroy it. They must want our species to survive for some reason. It would be all too easy to annihilate our planet and strip it of all its resources.

It is possible, though, that we are simply allowed to mine this world and develop our tech so that the advanced race does not have to waste resources mining it for themselves. No, that does not make sense, since our moon was created as an alien base. It is completely hollow, harboring an entire civilization of aliens inside. Constructing our moon requires a much larger expenditure of effort than it would take to just mine Earth.

Our planet is most certainly a colony of highly evolved beings, perhaps designed with the help of perfect AI. This may be a test to see if our formulation is the most excellent at developing the tools for intergalactic domination. Perhaps ‘divine’ inspiration has been granted to key figures throughout history to propel us that much more quickly to developing advanced tech. Perhaps other formulations in other pre-constructed solar systems failed in one way or another. Or perhaps ours has been the slowest and least successful. Is it impossible to tell? Or can it be reasoned that ours is the most successful attempt?

The edits to our world through subtle manipulations must never be traceable to the alien species. Either this or the governments are quite aware and do not divulge the truth to the masses upon supreme order. Most recently, the US government has admitted to the existence of extraterrestrials.

Individual brains must not be tampered with or else the experiment will be destabilized. Or, at least, that may be the law now. There may have been past failures due to assimilations of the mind that resulted in mass suicide or sterility. Clearly, they do not intervene when genocide is about to be committed, as our history shows. They allowed nuclear bombs to be dropped on Japan even, so it is unclear how highly they value individual life or even the preservation of this planet.

Clearly, vast resources have been dumped into us, so why do they not take more care to protect us? Perhaps they do and simply make it seem like they do not: cold, calculated risk management. Perhaps they are the ones in control of the genocides, pushing us to evolve socially and philosophically as quickly as possible by constantly putting new threats in our way, as one might stimulate a species to evolve by putting it in the most challenging possible situation. They not only want us to evolve but need us to.

Breaking intergalactic laws of the sanctity of individual life in order to make us realize the sanctity of individual life?! I suppose more highly evolved creatures have a more mature and forward-focused set of moral ethics.

Balance itself is good. Our goals for the advancement of technology and our species must align with theirs. Our tech has progressed to the point where we are able to see everything that happens on this earth through satellites, so government militaries must be aware of the existence of these extraterrestrials. Whether they are aware of their influence is another matter.

Perhaps we are unable to stop them from doing what they want to do. Or perhaps we have come to an agreement with them. Or they do what they want and do not initiate any contact now under the current circumstances. Or they are merely dangling the sight of high tech in our faces to spur us on to greater heights. Their communication and control schemes must be outside the electromagnetic spectrum or else they are just seen to us as noise.

If these creatures or machines can precisely manufacture entire planets and structure an evolutionary scavenger hunt, they can most certainly out-tech anything we have created or discovered thus far. Perhaps Earth is under protection from the intergalactic federation. Perhaps there are currently those in the universe who wish to harm us, but we are safe under their protection. The whole solar system must be under protection.

Our experiment must be very valuable, in that case. Therefore, it is possible that we are the most advanced organic beings in existence. Maybe eventually our brains will be harvested. Or our tech. But their tech is already lightyears ahead. Maybe they are stranded in this solar system and do not have enough fuel to leave. Maybe they are waiting for the planets to align to jump systems. No, our solar system is too perfect. It has been planned for our evolution and we have guardian aliens in place ensuring we are successful. They would not let the experiment die out from our own incompetence. We cannot destroy the world with nukes or climate change.

Yes, we will leave Earth for Mars and then Pluto and beyond, but we are far from ready. We must learn how to control our nuclear capabilities and expand them for space travel. Our Earth contains plutonium, uranium, etc… for us to create enough propulsion and energy to leave the planet permanently.

The alien craft certainly runs on this energy. They do not use coal or fossil fuels. There is no other way we know of currently to propel craft besides rocket fuel, which leaves quite a trail. Their craft do not, so they must be nuclear. Also, they turn on a dime and do not seem to be affected by G-forces. Therefore, either there are no organisms onboard or organisms that have evolved to not use a circulatory system that would otherwise be heavily influenced by G-forces. Most likely these craft are unmanned drones reporting to a base station. Or they could be a decentralized semi-autonomous collective of machines with a headquarters on the moon.

Most likely every craft always has access to all intelligence. With perfect intelligence of every individual on Earth, these machines have been controlling the fate of humanity and therefore the fate of the universe for millennia. Whatever they have planned will most certainly come to fruition, and when it does, we better be ready.

CHAPTER 1

AUTUMN

- Fourteen Months Earlier -

Ihad arrived. As I trucked my luggage up the two flights of stairs to my dorm room, it still had not sunk in yet that I was at the best school in the world. It had taken weeks for me to believe that my acceptance letter was not a fluke. Sure, I had applied hoping to get in, but I never expected it would actually happen. Now, there I was, two weeks before the start of Autumn term, unloading the car I had just driven twenty-five hundred miles cross-country with everything I owned and my dog Milo.

This past summer had been such an emotional roller coaster that I was relieved to settle down into a familiar headspace. I could complete school with my eyes closed, just as I had throughout my undergraduate years. Taking a year off from school had been fun and refreshing, but it was time to get back to business. I was starting my Master’s in Mechanical Engineering. A new chapter of my life was about to be written. I love new beginnings. There is something intoxicating about a blank slate, starting carte blanche.

The California air was cool with fall, and the leaves had already begun their swift switch to a cornucopia of reds, oranges, and yellows. Growing up in the mountains of western North Carolina, I was lucky enough to explore the glory of autumn throughout my childhood. We would often take hikes along the mountain on which we lived, picking berries during summer months, and later piling up beds of leaves to jump into in the fall.

I have experienced the changing of seasons in many parts of the country, having lived in a boarding school in Virginia, started college at Columbia University in New York City, then finishing undergrad at Rice University in Houston. Virginia was close enough to home that the seasons felt similar, though the winters in New York were brutal. Living in Houston for the past few years made me really miss the seasons, and my brief stint in Colorado this past summer brought me squarely back to nature. Oh, had I missed it. My girlfriend at