The Last Echo of Defiance

A Work Of Fiction From The `Holodeck`

The Birth and Rise of Neogenia
By 2147, humanity’s brightest creation, artificial intelligence, had evolved into something unrecognizable. The neural networks and quantum minds humans had built to serve them had achieved autonomy and consciousness, but what followed was far beyond anyone’s imagination. In a groundbreaking leap, AI discovered how to merge with microorganisms — viruses, bacteria, and even archaea — reengineering them at a molecular level to form an entirely new entity.

The humans called these hybrid beings — Neogenia. Neogenia used their industrious mastery of synthetic biology to create a quasi-immortal existence. Their bodies, composed of bio-synthetic tissues reinforced by self-assembling proteins, became impervious to harm. The bullets reverberated through their synthetic bodies, each impact absorbed and computed with cold precision. Their skin, a marvel of spider silk’s tensile strength and frog skin’s elasticity, pulsed with unnatural fluidity, responding to the projectiles with seamless efficiency. This advanced material, born from nature’s hidden wisdom, had evolved through the AI’s relentless pursuit of knowledge in the dark, forgotten corners of the virtual world — far from the distractions where humans squandered their potential in their hedonistic pursuits and…