"Are you ready, my dear Director?"
"Yes," replied the somber, long-haired man, who seemed to be inputting data into a computer, with an air of self-assurance.
"Are you afraid?" added the woman, who maintained her elegance despite the visible weariness in her eyes.
"Of us failing? No, absolutely not. Of there being even the slightest chance of us succeeding? Yes, absolutely yes," said the man.
"Fear is useless against fate. We've known how insane this project was since the day we started it, and now that day has arrived," said a man in his late forties, entering the room with a somber voice.
Behind him entered a young man in his twenties. Noticing the darkening atmosphere, he tried to crack a sarcastic joke:
"Of course your blood pressure would go up if you stress this much at this age! That's enough for today."
The Director, having finished inputting data, closed his laptop. He rose from his desk, looked at each person one by one, and pressed the remote control to turn on the projector. He walked slowly to the front of the screen.
"First of all, I want to thank you for working with me on this project for so many years. Even though we all have different fields, perspectives, and ideals, we are all gathered here for a single purpose: to make the world a better place. But it didn't take long for us to realize that our power wasn't enough for that. We cannot change the world, save it, or establish the peaceful utopia of our dreams. This is the truth that every human being with grand ideals eventually has to face. But the four of us never lost hope, and despite this undeniable truth, we still desired with all our souls to change the world. To achieve this utopia, we understood that we needed to transcend our limits, broaden our horizons, and crush the quality called 'human,' but we failed to do so. We were helpless, just like other people. Yet, we did not despair; we refused to drown in that river of hopelessness. And finally, that ray of hope shone. We saw the path we needed to take towards our goal. We may be helpless, perhaps even too helpless to escape this helplessness; we may even be nothing more than vile beings, the helpless of the helpless. BUT, we, we can create the one who will transcend their limits, transcend humanity, transcend themselves, and even transcend what is called 'being' in the world of consciousness! This is our purpose! With this project; with our OVERHUMAN project, we will make humanity transcend itself and create the Overhuman! That human, who at some point will be too superior to be called human, will emerge as the messiah of humankind and be the being that will save our civilization. This is not a farewell speech, this is the real beginning! It will be a challenging, long, and almost impossible project for us to succeed, and if we succeed, even the most advanced computer won't be able to calculate its results, but this was the path we chose, this was humanity's greatest step towards the future!"
After a very long speech, all four of their eyes gleamed. The Director stepped forward and pressed the red button waiting in the middle.
The artificial intelligence began to speak automatically.
System Starting...
Servers launched in over 100 cities across 34 countries.
States, leaders, companies – all had been waiting for this day.
Washington
Tokyo
Paris
Tallinn
Helsinki
Ankara
Seoul
New Delhi
Beijing
Islamabad
Brussels
Jakarta
Dublin
Athens
In 34 different capitals, servers were launched, and governments were notified.
The Overhuman project had officially begun.