By 2050, all meaningful technological progress had migrated to outer space.
On earth, the long wait began. Humans no longer died, but immortality was not yet guaranteed.
The first TechLabs were in low orbit, then they moved to the moon and near-earth asteroids. All research was carried out by the ONET using specialized AIs and nanobots.
The components were tiny but they needed vast volumes of space to maneuver, free from dust, gas, and gravity.
Sometimes it took weeks for the microscopic bots to sort out their positions for an experiment, the swarms orbiting majestically. Cutting edge nanotech was insanely expensive, but little else mattered anymore.
The end result of all the Conglomerates' efforts was less than one ton of hypertech materials, under construction at a secret location in the outer solar system. It formed a sphere of flickering points of light that sometimes resembled a 1990s-era CGI special effect.
Connected through secure relays, no human or digital mind knew even the quadrant of the sky where it might be found. The first quantum hypercomputer would be powerful enough to calculate certain infinite functions.
More important, it would calculate the simplest way humanity could become truly immortal, by inventing a way to eternally stabilize and improve digitized posthuman minds.
The stakes were literally infinite.
On the former asteroid Zomga, the final breakthrough was imminent.
Powered by a thin web of solar panels half as wide as Earth's moon, the largest classical AI had almost debugged the quantum hypercomputer's fantastically unstable operating system.
A few terribly subtle problems remained. Some wondered whether such a profound transition would be felt before it happened.
The world economy simplified itself as mankind awaited the unknown.
The only remaining purpose for humans was to create their own replacements. Nothing would be lost when they joined their successors.
Human-level minds would remain at the foundation of the new order, performing the most simple and common tasks, where they would be most useful.
The last days of humanity were dreamlike, full of long evenings and preliminary goodbyes, road trips and long-delayed quests. They had a remarkable freedom from obligations. There was also a lot of sex, though that was no longer biologically necessary.
At the end, the financial markets went crazy. Long-term contracts and promises proliferated and were renegotiated by the hour. Mankind devolved into a race of lawyers, trying to lock in permanent rights and benefits.
There were grand intrigues and conspiracies, as the last supercriminals stole fortunes they had to spend in days. Time seemed to slow, an ending and a beginning.
Operations of the hypercomputer would be tightly constrained.
Every conceivable threat was anticipated: it would only transmit a few words the first day, and even those would be censored.
Things would get very hectic very fast. Some anticipated instant hypnotic patterns, or religious revelations, or even for time to reverse itself, and a new universe to pop into existence. The transition might be instantaneous.
Or everyone might wake in a familiar world, reliving their past until they noticed strange changes and asked what had happened.
Alternatively, the hypercomputer might simply destroy itself.
The most likely result was a flood of diagrams to build self-improving robots that would completely reorganize the solar system, turning everyone into indestructible software. The sooner the better.
Only one thing seemed certain as the last minutes ticked away. It was no longer possible for mankind to be surprised.
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The best hard SF novel: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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