[ WP ] Your entire human life was just an educational simulation of the species that existed on the planet long ago .

You know, I always thought that coming out of the Matrix must have sucked for transgendered people. It's all about self-visualization, so they did n't even know they were transgendered until they got out in their real-world bodies. As it turns out, they got off easy. When Ekren The Digger translated the WWW device, it changed society. We, or they, or whatever, realized that the Earth is far older than we thought. We ( I'll go with we ) discovered that human technology had destroyed humanity, and given birth to the Riken. Of course, I think of the Riken as rat people. Large mammals all went extinct in the Destruction. We do n't actually know what the Destruction was, as it's the only thing unrecorded in the Web Archives. When the large mammals died out, the small ones grew into their niches. Mice got huge, replacing the large herbivores, while squirrels grew to replace scavengers like hyenas and jackals. Small cats got big, so the apex predators of most environs remain the same, but the genetic jackpot of tool use went to the rats. Once the proto-Riken got used to tools, they stopped scavenging food, and started building farms, and then societies. No one knows how long it was before they discovered human tools, but when they did, technology diverted drastically from human path. Riken used human guns, human automobiles, human everything. Sciences meant nothing to them, and to this day, the vast majority hasn ’ t gotten past the tribal phase. All study was on how to adapt human technology to Riken anatomy. When Ekren The Digger decoded the WWW machine, a computer running on nuclear power, he unlocked all of human knowledge. For the first time, Riken looked to the stars, and pondered their own existence. They discovered history, philosophy, culture, medicine, and engineering. All but the last two held their attention for about a week. Riken are a lot less “ evolved ” then humans were, and they were too practical to see any use for anything that didn ’ t help them immediately. So they designed me, and my five friends. Humanity is hard to learn in twenty years ( the new lifespan ), so they created a program that replicated seventeen to thirty two years of human life to learn it all in a span of minutes. Engineering, Strategy, Law, Computer Science, Economics, and Medicine all have individual lives to teach Riken about them. Problem is, every hundred thousand who go in lose their rat memories coming out. So now, here I am, a Riken, headed to New Ur, the city where “ people ” like me go. I ’ m keeping this journal to try to stay sane. Let me tell you how much this sucks. First, this is the body of a female Riken. I neither know nor care what her name was, or who she was. Turns out, clans are important, but individual families aren ’ t, so Ma and Pa don ’ t mind me leaving. Point is, I do know is that being a rat woman SUCKS, and let ’ s leave it at that. Second, female Riken are considered old enough to go to the Simulator on their first pregnancy. It works most of the time, but this time it didn ’ t. Now I ’ m stuck pregnant, and I ’ m due with quadruplets in thirty days. That doesn ’ t sound fun. Third, I ’ m two foot eight, or roughly four fifths of a meter tall. Fourth, there are six human templates, Gunthers, Petras, Matsudas, Rachels, Astrids, and me. So I ’ m moving to a city that is made up of six citizens times 150,000, half of whom are trans. Last that I can think of, I ’ m one year old. That ’ s not much by human standards, but with my new physiology, I ’ ve got nineteen years max to live. And I ’ ve spent a week of it in transit to New Ur. God only knows what I ’ ll find there.
