Something of a God

I'm reasonably certain that I am some sort of God. I am an expert on human biology and psychology and it seems impossible to me that either could result in someone who can do the things I do and think the way I think.

During my first term as World Governor I functionally eliminated poverty, most infectious diseases, and set up the Mating Incentive System which has and will continue to improve the quality of the human gene pool with regards to health, happiness, intelligence, and morality over subsequent generations. No one else could have convinced the world to adopt a (non-forcible, incentive based) eugenics program, but all I had to do was come up with the right way to explain it to them. The MIS was scaled back prematurely with the arrival of near-universal genetic screening and embryo selection, but it was still a neat program. I'll be honest, it did give me a bit of a quasi-sexual thrill to know I was guiding the reproductive and romantic life of humanity, back when the MIS was in place. That's not something I would like known, but even if the whole world knew it would only very marginally decrease my popularity. That is the level of their respect for my accomplishments.

Ethnic, religious, sexual, and ideological conflict mostly vanished when I instituted a Free Association Plan that redistricted the world such that no single human had to live near anyone much different from them unless they truly wanted to.

GDP has grown such that most people could own their own airplane, were there not overriding safety considerations. As it stands, hiring a private jet now costs about as much per mile as hiring a taxi did at the turn of the 21st century.

Airplanes still mostly use fossil fuels, but aside from that a massive increase in nuclear, wind, solar, biomass and quantum energy production and some battery technology advances I spearheaded have made fears over climate change mostly fade like a bad dream upon waking.

I also established a Human Extinction Prevention Group which at the time of this writing has prevented an estimated 2.94 extinctions and a Disaster Prevention Group which has saved an estimated 8.90 million Quality Adjusted Life Years from the grim reaper, and an additional 0.08 million QALY from likely injuries. That 0.08 million would be a lot higher, but my Universal Ubermensch Research Network has made great strides in technological solutions to paralysis, lost limbs, burns, hearing damage, vision loss, etcetera. Indeed, the UURN has reduced the number of genetic diseases we've had to screen for, since 8% of them are now trivially dealt with.

Also: the colonization of Luna, Mars, and Mercury. And drug addiction has been reduced from a serious problem in human society to a somewhat serious inconvenience. And the helium shortage. And obesity. And the removal of many species of sturgeon from the endangered species list. And a corpus of sea urchin farming techniques. And a thousand more achievements to celebrate.

We still have elections and term limits. But I have served as the principle cabinet member of every World Governor after me, and I have been involved in every aspect of their administration. World Governor is no longer a job for the power hungry, it is a job for those who want to assist me in doing the things I was incarnated on Earth to do.

All serious World Governor candidates promise during their campaign that they will appoint me as the key advisor to their administration. Generally around 99% of citizens vote on the basis of the recommendation of the Candidate Assessment Research Project, an organization of which I am the chairman. And I know for a fact that around a tenth of them are sexually aroused by casting their vote according to my organization's recommendation. There are a lot of psychologists, intelligence researchers, and genetic analysts who are employed by CARP, and they are all quite good at what they do, but in reality they are all there simply to check my work. I am an excellent judge of character.

Eventually, my disapproval rate plunged close enough to 0% that it wasn't prudent to report it as anything else. The vast majority of humans will never personally meet someone with a negative opinion of me, and it wouldn't be good for my detractors' already questionable mental health to be constantly scrutinized and gawked at by the public any more than necessary.

Of my supposed critics, many are being disingenuous in their expressed distaste for my leadership. They claim to dislike me for reasons of irony, or as a dubiously clever artistic statement, or because they have some sort of rare and difficult to comprehend sexual fetish for doing so.

The exact number of people who truly dislike me is a very closely guarded secret. In fact, it's something only I know. But since we're among friends I'll tell you.

Through sophisticated psychological analysis, I have ascertained the current number to be fifty. Fifty out of a population of 30 billion.

But, if fifty should become fifty-one, then something must be done.

And so it was that I decided to cure a woman named Emma of her misplaced resentment.

____

Dear Emma,

It has come to my attention that you are not satisfied with my utopia. In order to rectify this situation, I am inviting you to Mega Mansion Prime. I will send a private jet to pick you up this Friday at 17:30, in three days. There will be dinner.

Sincerely, Asher Lockman

The letter was written on a sheet of synthetic platinum. Emma was in a state of shock. The world that Lockman had created had many adventures in it, for people who enjoyed that sort of thing. A person could pay to be given excitement, and an Adventure Agency would unleash some sort of thrilling but safe plot into their life. A coded map to fake treasure, a fake criminal mastermind in need of thwarting, a fake cult led by a charismatic but sinister leader with seemingly magic powers, who the adventurer must expose in front of his followers.

None of the fake adventures involved Asher Lockman. And besides, she hadn't signed up for anything. Emma felt she should be angry at what was happening, but she couldn't quite think of a justification as to why.

The private jet ride had an on-board aquarium and an in-flight puppet show. When she arrived, she and Asher dined on caviar canapés and uni nigiri on the patio.

"Did you know that I'm the one responsible for restoring wild populations of sturgeon?"

"Yup. Everyone knows that. Just like you're the reason sea urchin and helium are affordable again. I'm not going to debate you. I know I'd lose."

"It doesn't have to be a debate. You could just explain your objections, and I could listen."

"No thank you."

Asher chose to let a subjectively awkward silence hang for a few moments.

"I didn't invite you here to force you to feel gratitude you don't want to feel. I'm here to give you a perfect life, and if you don't feel grateful after that then I'll move on."

Birds chirped in the great garden. The wind blew. Koi circled in their ponds.

"How will you give me the perfect life?"

"Come inside with me, and I'll show you."

So they walked together, through living spaces with high ceilings, from foyer to hallway to kitchen to library, until finally they passed through an inauspicious white door and came to a series of more industrial and scientific rooms. Laboratories, business lounges with big digital writing boards, machining floors, warehouses, and so on.

At last they came to a room with a simple glass partition, and behind that partition was a complex machine. It had pumps, gears, glass tubes with steam traveling through, long thin plastic tubes like the ones from a bicycle brake, slowly rotating barrels like that of a cement mixer, exhaust valves, and many more things beside. Instead of asking for an explanation, Emma stood and stared, even though she knew her odds of understanding seemed low.

With no sign or warning from Asher, a trap door swiftly opened beneath Emma, and down she fell, not even touching the sides of the square hole that had appeared in the floor. She landed on a greased slide. The drop was well-lit, and as she slid there were goofy mechanical rubber hands that removed her clothes, sort of like the famous contraption from Wallace and Gromit. And if there was anyone watching who appreciated the sight of mechanized rubber glove-like hands disrobing a woman then I'm sure they got quite a kick out of it. And if they wish they can imagine that the rubber glove hands groped her too.

Finally she landed in a vast vat of shining white gooeyness, more brilliant than pearls, and her downward momentum carried her deep beneath the surface. And although the contents of the vat filled her throat, she did not drown. Apparently it was a special sort of goo that could not be drowned in, or perhaps Emma's physiology had been surreptitiously strengthened somehow to allow her to survive in such conditions. The sensation of inhaling viscous liquid was an odd one, and Emma initially panicked, thinking that she was drowning, and that each moment would be her last.

But eventually the unexpectedly long series of panicked moments stretched that hypothesis, and she realized she was alive and breathing. Once Emma regained her bearings, she tried to swim to the top, but found that it had been covered. Despite the vat's opacity, the warm thick fluid shone with light, although there was nothing to see but more of the same.

Suddenly the contents of the vat began to churn, swirling faster and faster. The movement caused Emma to spin, then tumble upside-down, and then it righted her again, and on an on, all the while buffeting her sensitive areas, until she felt the chaotic tide within as well as without.

After what felt like an hour of subjective time, the sloshing stopped. But Emma felt the pulsing movement of the opalescent liquid continue inside her, like an amplified heartbeat. But Emma was exhausted, and even though her body was pulsing, the warmth of the tank carried Emma off into a daze, and from there to a deep and restful sleep.

Emma awoke in a canopy bed in a sparsely decorated but pleasantly luxurious bedroom. Birds were chirping outside. The sun shone down through the open window. The scent of flowers wafted the air. The world was a poem and all her thoughts were crystal clear and precise, like a sculpture by Michelangelo in high definition with each muscle and sinew exactly in its place.

Instinctively, Emma tried to multiply two digit numbers in her head. 44 * 29. 1276. 31 * 87. 2697. 21 * 321. 6741. 491 * 128... 62848! The exhilaration doubled when she looked down at her body and saw what had changed. Her skin was clear and resplendent, and where the light touched it it had the luster of polished marble.

Her boobs... Her boobs, once merely "okay", now breasted into bosom bazoongas with each titillating hooter, udder mammiferousness from busty cans to milky jugs, nippling globes of melony jiggling. Or something along those lines. You can imagine them however you wish to.

She stood up. Her body was now tall, lean, and toned. She looked into the room's desk mirror and saw that her eyes were now bigger, bluer, and more beautiful. As far as possible results that might come from falling down a trap door go, this seemed to be one of the better ones.

____

Then I walked in.

"How are you feeling?"

To this she gave no immediate response.

Eventually she said, "I would like to know the ways I have been changed, which would have been polite to tell me beforehand. Tell me, please." she said with faux-politeness, although she did not seem exactly angry.

"Increased beauty, fitness, intelligence, mental health, and nothing more. Despite the underhanded way these changes were effected, nothing has been done to you that you would not have approved of, if given the full opportunity to read the list of modifications in advance. The only catch is that I must insist on you taking on a new identity. If the world knew I could give people bodies like yours, everyone would want one. You can still use your old identity to meet with people from your old life, but I'd like you to wear this hologram projector suit I invented while you do. It simulates how you used to look. You don't have to keep any secrets from your parents though, I trust them not to tell anyone."

Generally speaking, Emma did not like to give up much control, even in pursuit of a good end. She had her reasons for that preference, and they weren't bad ones. But, given the circumstances, she decided to make a rare exception.

"It seems I owe you a great deal of thanks." said Emma. "To be honest, I was kind of worried you'd turn me into some kind of sex slave."

"God's essential nature is creative, not destructive. Freeing, not restricting. That's why it is natural for humans to follow him."

"Is that how you think of yourself? As God?"

I paused.

"To be honest, I'm not sure."

She seemed to accept that.