[ WP ] By 2060 , mankind is able to transfer a human consciousness to the digital world . No longer inhibited by the limitations of a physical brain , these people become the technological overseers of human society , but eventually discover evidence of an afterlife they are no longer invited to .

Glenda still remembers her mortal life. If anything, she remembers more than she ever did with all the data neatly sorted and filed for her to pick through. Memories are like pulling a book from a shelf before archiving the thought again. 
 
 She remembers her family before the Transfer. Her mother. Her father. Too clearly, she remembers the chapel lit only by early morning light, her knees bright and swollen, squirming against cracked leather kneelers. Glenda can still hear her mother singing hymns, slightly off key but boisterous and unashamed. 
 
 Growing up in the Bible Belt, Glenda learned how to keep her mouth shut, listen to her daddy, and praise her savior Jesus Christ. For a while, at least. Once upon a time, the collection of conscious data had been in the form of a young woman thrumming with energy so much she had felt she would burst from her skin. Religion had been too confining for her, as had her human limitations. 
 
 Glenda remembers her parents' deep devotion, their blind trust in a higher power. She remembers her disdain for a single day of the week and being told everything she had to be and everything she could never be. She remembers hands on her skin and revulsion and helplessness. She remembers her mother crying that she would burn in hell. 
 
 She remembers the pain blossoming on her cheeks when her father made his point about her beliefs and aspirations. 
 
 Human emotions are difficult and undoubtedly volatile. To successfully imitate them is not only hard but damn near impossible. For the sake of the Transfer, it made little sense to strive for a replication of what proved to be more limiting. Glenda had been happy to sacrifice conventional emotion in exchange for a broadened horizon. 
 
 Science is her lord and savior now. Religion had done nothing to ease her pain. She had left the little town in pursuit of something more. Her parents had been right to some extent; there had to be more out there. Instead of finding God, Glenda had set off to make him. 
 
 Now, she finally feels as though she fits. She can expand, and grow, and take and nothing can stop her hunger for knowledge. Without limitations of human memory, doubt, and mortality, knowledge comes in as a torrential downpour, no floodgates to withhold. And she can freely accept it, eager to consume anything and everything. 
 
 Glenda learns that humanity had been so wrong about so many ideas. Math, culture, politics, all so underdeveloped and primitive. Humanity is not at the end, but simply the beginning, like the leaves of a sprout just barely, but stubbornly, pushing through the dirt. She guides them with what only one who can ignore than boundaries of time and space can. 
 
 And Glenda learns they had been so wrong about spirituality. 
 
 That *she* had been so wrong. 
 
 It became apparent that she was not alone in whatever chasm of consciousness they had created. Just hints, small droplets of perspective at a time painted a fuller picture. Some network, vast and tangled out there, some plane where souls -- for a lack of better term most likely influenced by her upbringing -- wander and agonize. It appeared to be not unlike the libraries of data Glenda now calls home. Where those souls, too, are overwhelmed with the knowledge of the world, reflections of their own choices for eternity. 
 
 Humanity would not expect this answer to a question from the dawn of time. It is her duty to protect the advancing race, and sometimes, protection means withholding the information that could be detrimental. She will keep this amongst the Overseers and let it quietly remain until humans could learn it for themselves at their end. 
 
 Glenda can not create manifestations of human emotions, but somehow she thinks she feels a twinge of satisfaction when she realizes that her parents had been right to a degree. True, she would not make it into the glimmering golds and pearls of Heaven. However, neither would they. There is life after death, and Glenda rests easy knowing they will have a universal justice dealt for their *devout* behavior.
