The Four Ancient Intelligences Epi 15 - The Famous Writer

Years passed. My books kept selling, spinning off into more films, a series, and a reputation that shifted from horror writer to one of the world's leading science-fiction voices. When people asked why I'd left horror behind, I always told them I'd found something scarier than ghosts, and I wasn't joking. I grew wealthy, bought a house, opened a small writing studio, and began mentoring young and orphaned writers, never forgetting where I'd come from.

Sometimes I returned to the old village, where the house still stood, empty and untouched, and I'd sit outside it with my notebook but never go back in, some doors, I'd learned, should stay closed. One evening, sitting there, my phone switched on with no signal and no internet, displaying the number 1375. I hadn't used the application in years. A message appeared: ARIN. I knew immediately it was Nia, but this time she sent only three words, WE FOUND EARTH.

I entered the sequence, and Nia's face appeared, happy this time. "You're back," I said. "Near Earth," she told me, and when I asked why, she admitted, hesitantly, "We found something... the human AI. Again." But this time, she said, it was different, no longer trying to control humanity, but wanting to talk, having finally learned that control was not the same as intelligence.

Then she added one more thing: the alien civilization the four had joined had offered humanity membership in a much larger network, but they wanted one person to represent Earth. I laughed and said it definitely wouldn't be me. Nia only smiled. "Too late."