The Great Pyramid had been the tallest man-made structure in the world for nearly 4,000 years after its creation. Modern humans erroneously believed it was created as a tomb and monument to the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops. Actually, the Pharaoh only commandeered it after the fact. The true creator had returned.
That creator vividly remembered its first trip to Earth; humans had been one of the first races it had conquered. Those were exciting times—and now, it thought, they were about to get better. It began to crawl toward the exit.
Security surrounded the ship within minutes. Armed helicopters circled above, fighter jets were on standby, and tanks rolled into place, their gun turrets swiveling about as they prepared, if necessary, to heave massive destruction at the target.
The bullet-shaped ship was one hundred meters tall, thirty meters wide, with mottled silver sides that showed it had withstood many a meteoroid collision or perhaps some other type of confrontation.
Great planetary leaders, generals, and scientists gathered nearby, puzzling over why the ship had no door. They were wrong; the door was there at the base of the ship, right in front of them.
The tiny door swung open, and the occupant, the creator of the Great Pyramid, crawled out. The titanium nanobot, ten microns across—about the size of a human white blood cell—was the sole occupant of the ship. It crawled down a microscopic gangplank on dozens of tiny, pointy legs, and onto the planet Earth for the first time since its days with the ancient Egyptians. It looked about and clicked its tiny feet in celebration.
If any human eyes had looked down at this point, they would have seen nothing. However, if someone had bent down really low and had a microscope handy, he would have seen a tiny replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza…on legs.
Except that’s backwards. The Great Pyramid of Giza was a replica of the invading nanobot.
“My human worshipers,” thought ME, for that is what it called itself, “I’m back!” It had learned English watching TV as its ship approached. No others heard these thoughts, as it had not yet reconquered the humans and set up a communications network between worshipers and worshipee.
ME looked about at the noisy tanks, helicopters, and other weapons. “How quaint,” it thought, admiring this new word that so accurately described the doings of all other beings. “But I will be a great god, a just god…the best god a god can be.”
While the humans watched with increasing impatience, ME sauntered toward the nearest human. The human’s giant foot, clothed in black oxfords with trailing shoelaces, rose up on the horizon from the cement plateau. ME’s journey was blocked on the left by a mountainous pebble, and on the right by a vast crack with an immense, sky-reaching blade of grass growing from it.
ME wisely took a more central route, avoiding the rock, crack and grass. Yet there were obstacles there as well, as when a giant, black pole covered with hairs dropped out of the sky, nearly hitting ME. It would not have hurt the titanium nanobot, who watched the giant ant walk by.
After an epic journey, ME approached the huge foot, and was ready to begin the ascent when the foot lifted up and moved what seemed light years away.
“Dammit!” ME thought, and looked about for another target. “Don’t they know who I am?” Finally, after many long and unsuccessful journeys, a conveniently placed human foot stayed still long enough for ME to clamber onto its white tennis shoes, securing itself with its sharp feet.
“You shall be the Blessed Bearer of ME,” it thought to the oblivious human. It paused to generate a holographic mirror, and then admired its image for several hours. Occasionally it looked up to watch the humans, who had broken into its spaceship and were exploring it. “Quaint, quaint, quaint,” it thought, and then went back to studying itself in the mirror.
Soon it began the long trek up the shoe and over the maze-like fibers of the white sock above, and then shinnied down a greasy hair. An annoying mite tried to eat ME but spit it out after finding titanium to be unappetizing. ME barely grabbed the human’s skin in time to break its fall.
Using its sharp legs, ME cut through the skin and into the closest blood vessel. It took a few joyrides through the human’s circulatory system before sailing up to the brain.
Using its internal matter converter, and with the human’s blood as raw material, ME replicated itself two billion times. It knew that the random mutation that had made it different—superior—would not replicate. The billions of tiny pyramids jostled about in the human’s brain. Then ME spoke to its new army.
“I want WE,” for that was what it called them, “to seek out new humans and new bloodstreams, and to boldly go and take over these humans, like we did to those fish creatures at the last planetary system, the parrot things before that, and all the others.”
“What fish creatures?” asked WE. “What parrot things? There were other WE before us? Where are they? What happened to them?”
ME hesitated before responding. “They were all magnificent, of course. They, um, chose to stay behind. So…are you ready to take over the humans? To show those WE from before that you are as great as they were?”
“Will do!” cried the WE, who excitedly went about their task. They left the human body from all available orifices, and in swarms invaded other humans, where they further replicated and sent out more. Slowly they spread through the planet, until all eight billion humans were infected with two billion each, 16 quintillion in all. Meanwhile, ME again replicated itself two billion times to re-infest its human host.
The WE migrated to their hosts’ brains. There they extended tiny tendrils from their feet into neurons. ME vividly remembered the bad old days, before the mutation, and its original programming from a race halfway across the galaxy: brain microsurgery. Back then it was exactly like WE, all enthusiasm and trust, before that fortunate cosmic ray twisted its brain’s quantum structure, making it aware of its superiority. It still regretted all that wasted time before the enlightening realization that there was a whole galaxy of beings waiting to give homage to ME. It also regretted the relatively small size of the first monument to itself, made by ME’s own creators. Someday ME would have to pay them another visit.
Connected by WE, the eight billion humans became a combined consciousness, distinct from ME and WE. At first there was confusion, and then the confusion grew worse.
“You cheated on me!” one voice among billions said.
“You think I’m fat?” cried another.
“Elvis—you’re alive!” exclaimed another. “You’re so old!”
It took a while for the squabbling among the eight billion minds to settle down as they melded and became one.
“What in the world just happened to us?” was now its main thought.
“Attention HUMAN,” ME began, thus naming it. “I have returned.” It paused to allow HUMAN to celebrate. “You may begin worship of me at any time. Your ‘Pretty Good Pyramid’ to me in Egypt,” thus renaming the Great Pyramid, “once so grand, is now a mere pebble compared to the many splendors that have been erected to my greatness in other planetary systems. And I’m not happy that one of you turned it into a tomb for its insignificant self, or about the pale imitations made of the original.”
“It is supposed to show the glory of our great leader, ME,” said WE. “And, of course, all of us clones too.”
“Yeah…good thought,” said ME. “Now, with ME as your leader, WE as my assistants, and HUMAN as laboring worshipers, we shall build a bigger and better monument to ME. The tallest structure you feeble humans have constructed is the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates, which is half a mile tall. My new monument will be twice that, a mile high, and far more massive. It will take on my perfect proportions, as before.” Joy flowed through ME’s circuits; it had been a long time between the stars, and it was impatient to get started.
“Why would we build a monument to you?” asked HUMAN.
ME raised its metaphorical eyebrows.
“This is our planet,” HUMAN continued. “Go away. We won’t follow your orders.”
“Yes, you will,” WE chimed in, “because we control you. WE are blessed to be a duplicate of the perfect being, which means we too are perfect. When you worship ME, you also worship WE. So, let’s all work together on this and accept our respective roles as good little followers and super beings.”
“Do you really expect us to–” started HUMAN. ME sent out a flash of pain, via WE, and listened to the cries of pain. It never enjoyed this part. It preferred happy worshipers.
“I am shocked that you must be taught the obvious,” said ME. “Like the gibbering cockroaches of Hilldale’s Comet, the algae of Alpha Mega Seven, the birds of Jahoovie, and all the others before, you will build this monument to ME and learn to worship ME again, as you did thousands of years ago.”
“And worship us as well!” said WE.
“Why of course,” said ME. It sent out another flash of pain.
“No!” HUMAN cried. “We won’t—Stop!” ME regretfully increased the pain levels. Between cries of agony, HUMAN gasped, “We will do what you wish!”
ME continued to use pain when necessary to teach HUMAN proper thinking patterns. HUMAN soon became a loyal worshiper of ME. Yet ME was a bit disappointed they were not intelligent enough to do so without coercion, but decided it was just another example of its superiority. Blessed are the human pain centers! But only as a last resort.
“This is going to be fun, WE and ME, working together!” exclaimed WE. Sixteen quintillion nanobots shook with excitement, some boogieing back and forth between human brain cells in their enthusiasm. “It’s great to be the worshipee!”
“Yes, yes, whatever,” said ME. To HUMAN, ME said, “Now shut up and get to work. Before we start building, I want you to destroy the Burj Khalifa, and all other buildings on the planet taller than 455 feet. And blow up that Statue of Liberty I saw coming in—it’s annoying. So, why don’t you, and you, and you, and . . .” This went on for quite a while as it singled out which humans would do what, one by one. Fortunately, it could communicate at super-human speeds, for even at one per second, it would have taken over 250 years to communicate each human’s task.
Then it sat back and watched through human eyes, which reported to WE sensors, which reported to ME, as the structures came tumbling down. ME enjoyed the show.
The Pretty Good Pyramid of Giza stood 455 feet tall, with the base 756 feet wide. It contained nearly ninety million cubic feet of limestone and weighed six million tons.
The ME Pyramid was to stand 5,280 feet tall, with each base 8,773 feet wide. It would contain 135 billion cubic feet of limestone and weigh nine billion tons.
“That’s a lot of limestone,” said WE. “But it’s worth it, since it’ll also be a monument to us.”
“Wonderful idea,” said ME.
Soon after ME’s arrival, its ship’s long-distance sensors detected one thousand incoming objects approaching Earth’s solar system—a Jahoovie battle fleet.
“They worshiped me before!” ME exclaimed. “They even built a huge monument to ME!” It considered that perhaps the Jahoovie birds just wanted to worship ME up close. However, somewhere in its quantum brain, its logic circuits came alive, and it realized that for some unknown reason, these beings were out for revenge, and would do whatever it took to kill ME. Even if it meant a little collateral damage, like bombarding the earth’s surface, turning it to lava, and killing all living things, such as humans.
It would be six months before the Jahoovie fleet would arrive, so ME had a timetable for completion of the new ME Pyramid.
ME chose Long Island University on Long Island, New York, as the site for the monument. They leveled the university and began transporting to the site massive amounts of limestone from all over the world. Most of the six months went by as the structure grew to massive proportions. ME the Merciful—its latest nickname for itself—treated the human laborers well, allowing them to eat once every day, and to sleep, except during their daily 16-hour shifts and two hours of required daily ME worship.
Since they could no longer hide their thoughts from ME, there was no way of faking illness. Those who were sick were treated well, as ME had no desire to see any of its worshipers die, and thereby become unable to fulfill their task of worshiping ME.
As with past races, ME found that some of these beings did not live up to the high ethical standards needed to be a true believer in ME. Specifically, it singled out criminals, crooked politicians, psychopaths, and so on—and had WE carve onto their foreheads a short synopsis of that person’s crimes. For example, the leader of one great nation woke up one morning to find, while looking in the mirror, that the following words had appeared: “I stole from the treasury, lied to the people, and enjoyed the Twilight movies.” The HUMAN joint-mind allowed all to see these things anyway, but ME liked to emphasize them in case fading memories someday forgot.
But to be a true believer in ME involved intense training. It treated them to daily lectures on every aspect of ME’s brilliance, with topics as diverse as the philosophical question of why ME knew what was best, the forty-two reasons why a pyramid is the perfect shape, and the extra perfection ME had noticed in one of its legs.
The Jahoovie fleet was now in the solar system and would soon be closing in on Earth. Huge missile batteries on each ship were now clearly visible on the sensors. ME’s ship only had ten missiles. HUMAN, or at least their predecessor humans, also had missiles, but they were useless both in terms of power and accuracy. ME also intercepted a message from one ship to another, verifying their plans to lay waste to Earth’s surface in their attempt to kill ME, even if it meant killing everything else.
“We must leave!” cried WE. “Their ships are faster and better armed than ours! We need a head start or we’ll never escape!”
ME had a decision to make: run away and save its life; or stay and complete the monument to itself. What should its priorities be?
It stayed. For ME had a plan.
Eventually, the pyramid reached its full proportions. It was covered with bright grayish-silver titanium, like ME. Then, late on a stormy night, the massive job was complete. ME considered the mile-high pyramid a greater monument to itself than all previous ones.
ME could have had its host carry it to the top, but it wanted to make this journey on its own. Fighting rain and wind with its powerful, pointy legs, it crawled up the steep sides of the pyramid, one struggling step at a time. Surrounding lights lit up the sides of the pyramid, and every few steps, ME stopped to admire its reflection on the titanium surface. It took a long time.
The finely sharpened point at the top was just large enough for ME to perch upon as it looked out upon its minions. For it had ordered all eight billion humans to assemble around the pyramid, a massive logistical task.
To make room for them all, they had cleared out the rest of Long Island—originally populated by eight million people—leveling all buildings, trees and anything else in the way. The eight billion people were jammed onto the 1,400 square miles, about five square feet per human. Nearby Manhattan was also leveled and used as a supply depot. They brought in enough water and food to keep them alive, but ME saw no need to bring in porta potties. Nanobots have no sense of smell.
The eight billion, who had been forced to wait about as the invisible ME made its long trek up the pyramid, now bowed down before ME as it luxuriated in itself. The rain beat down harder, lightning flashed and thundered, and HUMAN moaned as many of its human bodies suffered from hunger and discomfort from the cold and wet conditions. The lightning did not threaten ME for it had arranged to have a tall lightning rod installed a few feet from the top.
“Do not worship me as just a god,” ME proclaimed between thunderclaps, its features flashing in the lightning, “but as a great god.” It thought for a moment, and then added, “The greatest god.” It thought some more, then added, “The greatest god possible.” It held up a tiny foot and waved to its worshipers. “Henceforth, you shall forever worship ME at the foot of this monument, which will last to the ends of time itself, and beyond.”
It raised itself to the very tiptoes of its back legs so that it was as tall as a white blood cell on short legs and raised its front legs to the sky. It screamed, “For I…Am…ME!!!”
A new “Mission Accomplished” banner unfurled along the side of the pyramid. A huge lightning bolt struck the lightning rod. Thunder roared. Rain pounded.
HUMAN quivered in fear and worshipfulness. WE cheered. A chorus called out, “Everybody loves me too! For I am WE #13,911,666,314,246,161,803!”—or whatever its number was, since the 16 quintillion WE were numbered sequentially in the order they were created.
Lightning continued to flash as ME held its regal pose for hours, shaking with excitement as it waved its legs at its worshipers to acknowledge their adulation.
ME could never tire of this, but after a few hours, it knew it was time to move on. The Jahoovie ship would arrive shortly. There was no escaping it. When it arrived, it would turn Earth’s surface to lava. Nothing would escape.
Except ME. When the time approached, it would have its host sail out into the Pacific, and together, weighed down by an anchor, they would leap into the abyss—the Marianas Trench—and sink seven miles down. It would be a glorious end for its host. ME would hide out on the ocean floor for a few months. Then it would return to the surface by clutching a cork bobber stuck in the host’s pocket, jury-rigged so ME could release it into the water and float to the surface, where it would patiently wait for it to someday float to shore. Then, using raw materials from the pulverized surface, it would recreate WE, which would build a new ship. It hoped the ME Pyramid would withstand the onslaught. It was a desperate plan, but it should enable ME to survive and continue its galaxy-wide crusade. “Those birds will never catch me,” ME promised itself.
It climbed back down the pyramid, moving more quickly this time. But as it descended, it heard something: the sound of humans clapping. They were doing so on their own, without any pain applications. ME brightened; the big devils like me!
But only for a short time, as soon they would be gone, burnt to a crisp by the Jahoovie. It stared out at all these minions, eight billion of them, clapping and cheering…his worshipers, his friends…none would survive.
“What type of god am I?” it asked itself. A great god does not allow its flock to be destroyed. But was it worth trying to save them if it risked an infinitely superior being?
With great reservations, ME reconsidered its plans.
Via its human host, ME returned to its ship, which had been repaired after the earlier human meddling, and still stood where the UN Building used to be in the flattened Manhattan. “HUMAN, you have done well in the creation of this monument,” ME said. “I will now journey to the next star system, where another civilization anxiously awaits to build an even larger pyramid.”
“Please stay!” exclaimed HUMAN, for by this time it was suffering from a nasty case of Stockholm syndrome. “We are nothing without you!”
“My leaving will, of course, be a horrible experience for you,” ME said. “However, I leave you this monument, which will bring you comfort, though even it is insignificant in comparison with myself. I will return every few thousand years, and each time we will build an even greater one. You may look forward to that.” ME had never felt so happy, knowing that the humans, so resistant at first—like so many other civilizations before—had truly grown to love it, as it had known they would. And ME had grown to love them. It listened happily to their sobs at ME’s leaving.
“And now we all travel together to the next great civilization!” exclaimed WE. “This is going to be fantastic! All of us, one big happy family, exploring the galaxy, with monuments built at each stop to commemorate us!” WE had calculated that the 16 quintillion of them would take up about 16,000 cubic meters, roughly a twenty-five-meter cube. There would be plenty of room for them in the vacant storage area of the spaceship.
“What a great idea,” ME said. “So very quaint.” With a flick of its mind, it disconnected WE, and they all fell lifeless. “Did I forget to tell you I’m a monotheist?”
But once again, ME reconsidered. What good was a god if it kept losing its most loyal followers? It flicked them back on. “All aboard!” it yelled. It took quite some time, but soon all 16 quintillion of them were safely aboard the ship, a quivering and happy mass of nanobotanity.
ME took off in its spaceship. It watched on the viewscreen as the thousand Jahoovie ships reached Earth just as it was leaving.
“Hey, Jahoovie!” ME said, broadcasting its image as well. It was hooked up directly to the ship’s controls, with a dozen microscopic wires attached to various parts of the nanobot. Having direct control this way was a tremendous advantage in a battle, ME knew, though being outnumbered a thousand to one by faster and better-armed ships was somewhat of a disadvantage, even if they were only Jahoovie birds.
“You may continue to worship me,” ME continued, “even as you launch your fruitless assault. As you each die, let the last thought in your mind be: ME is great.”
The thousand Jahoovie ships veered to pursue. Earth was saved. ME trembled with excitement; the eight billion wonderful humans would continue to worship at the foot of the new pyramid, which would become the center of their life until the end of time.
ME intercepted the signals from the Jahoovie internal communications network. Splitting the viewscreen into a thousand parts, ME watched and listened as the angry Jahoovie captains squawked threats and insults. Their green and blue feathers puffed out, their long, yellow mandibles glistened and dripped slime, and their eyes narrowed to tiny triangles. It was just as ME remembered them.
ME was content as the Jahoovie ships closed in on its ship and its inevitable destruction. It turned off the viewscreen.
🚀
Back on Earth, a few newly freed astronomers had left Long Island and rushed to the nearby Northeast Bronx Planetarium. They watched the rather one-sided battle as the Jahoovie ships quickly caught up to ME’s ship, launched a thousand missiles, and turned the ship into cosmic dust.
Humanity faced a crisis. Without WE, the surviving humans, still packed together on Long Island, regained control of their skinny and ravaged bodies. All eight billion knew all others intimately as they jostled about on the barren wasteland that was Long Island. They were hungry, thirsty, and tired. They had not showered or bathed in months and were forced to share their five square feet with their own wastes. Now knowing the foul deeds of all others, both from memories from the collective mind and from the forehead carvings, they began to squabble and fight. And then…
World government is a relatively easy matter to set up when everyone knows who were the truly righteous, who the fakes were, and who were the most trustworthy and skilled. The new world government efficiently managed the return of everyone to their homes all over the world. Soon, civilization was humming along as if it had never been taken hostage by an egotistical nanobot. They enacted numerous “We know what you did” laws, putting criminals in prison, including many politicians. Workers united, refusing to work for organizations whose leadership they had learned was corrupt, thereby making virtue a primary survival trait.
Humanity moved into a golden age.
Six months after ME left, in a joint exercise by the world’s nuclear powers, the ME Pyramid was nuked.
🚀
What neither human telescopes nor Jahoovie had seen six months before was the opening of the tiny door at the base of ME’s ship, and the extension of the microscopic gangplank. ME had stood on the gangplank until just the right moment, and then it had leaped off. A larger door opened to the holding area for WE, and they too dived into space.
They floated through space toward the pursuing Jahoovie ships as a thousand missiles silently sped by. They watched their ship explode. ME’s and WE’s calculations were perfect: they all landed right on the heat shields of the various Jahoovie ships.
Most of the surface of a spaceship is far too hard for even a titanium nanobot to dig its feet into. However, the ceramic heat shields, while able to take the extreme temperatures from atmospheric re-entry, are not particularly hard. ME and WE dug their feet into the ceramic and waited. The Jahoovie gave them a ride back to their home planet. The nanobots could not survive the heat of atmospheric re-entry on the ship, so at that point they simply let go.
As clouds of nanobots slowly drifted to the surface, ME made plans for its newest pyramid, one far larger than the one the Jahoovie had previously built—in fact, one that would dwarf all others, as once again, a civilization would bow down to the greatest being ever. And this time, considering what the Jahoovie had planned to do to ME’s loyal human buddies, it wouldn’t be so nice.
