Covid Kamikaze

Alphy observed that slavery was still widely practiced on Earth. The Saps called it work. Employers owned employee slaves. The Saps endured this for the receipt of money — they were enslaved by the need of money.

(For Alphy money was not a problem, in the space of four minutes he had hacked the Bitcoin algorithm and could transfer funds at will).

Alphy put this society entrenched slavery down to the lack of automation and intelligent assistants and machines, meaning Saps had to work directly to generate goods and services for the overall society. Their level of intelligent innovation was still very limited. Washing machines, being an early example, followed in latter years by automobiles, planes, and the like. Their attempts at developing intelligent assistants, what the Saps referred to as robots was still pretty pathetic.

Alphy had noted with much amusement that his housemates thought it was very sophisticated to ask their Siri to turn on the lights. Alphy had then asked if Siri could compose and play a musical symphony to accompany the mood lighting, Siri uttered some meaningless reply and Alphy couldn’t help but give Johno, ‘isn’t that pathetic’ raise of the eyebrows look.

On AC, everything was delivered or produced by intelligent assistants and ‘machines’. Work was now an expression used to describe an historical activity steeped in their very distant past.

Alphy was also amazed to find that most Saps worked until they were very old (by their standards) and eventually could escape slavery and be freed, this they called retirement. In many cases, followed by just a few years of freedom before death.

In Australia, there is the phenomenon of the Grey Nomads, escapees who ‘migrate’ according to the seasons to areas of scenic beauty, predominantly coastal. Alphy observed that many having worked all their life to pay off a large house, now seemingly happy to spend large periods of time in small mobile homes.

He thought it somewhat ironic that the previous more than sixty thousand years old Aboriginal cultures that the Colonial Saps had virtually extinguished, spent their whole lives free from indentured work. Something the present day Grey Nomads could only dream of, in retrospect.

The latest ‘innovation’ that the Saps were celebrating was the landing of the Perseverance Rover on Mars. His house mates Johno and Janno had watched it excitedly on television. Alphy had reported back to AC that at this rate of progress, (and unbelievably using fossil-based propulsion), and given the massive proviso that they would survive, it would take the Saps thousands of years to escape the Milky Way. In contrast, Alphy had travelled 4.367 light-years from AC to Earth in six earth minutes via various STD (Space-Time Discontinuum) portals; routed by the AC equivalent of Google Maps, known as intergalactic maps or i-maps. Hence, why Alphy had been very disappointed on first encountering an i-phone, to find that it was far from intergalactic in its capability.

Currently in Australia, inter-continental let alone inter-galactic travel, is virtually impossible. The Prime Minister Scott Morrison, (self-described as ScoMo to engender that man of the people feeling), has closed the borders except for a small category of exemptions. Having castigated continuously State Governments for closing their borders, as part of their program to contain Covid, and accusing them of damaging the economy as a consequence, he imposed a ban on international arrivals from India even if they were Australian citizens. ‘Indian Australians’ who tested positive with Covid have also been refused access on very limited repatriation flights.

Alphy found all this perplexing, on AC the concept of nationhood and separate ethnic identities had disappeared many Millennia ago.

'So what do you reckon Johno, should the Indian Australians be allowed in?’

'Well mate, India is a bloody basket case at the moment and if we let them in, we’re going to get Covid back into the community.’

'But they are Australians shouldn’t they be allowed to enter as a right?’ Alphy asked pointedly.

Johno shuffled uncomfortable in his seat, ‘Well you know Alphy, are they really dinky-di Aussies?’

'But you came to Australia with your Italian parents when you were four- and you consider yourself an Aussie — yes?’

'Yeah but that’s different’

'Indians love cricket, the national sport of Australia, you don’t.’

'But they don’t barrack for the Aussies when they are playing India in a Test — but I barrack for Carlton in the footy — see my point?’

The conversation continues along these lines for some time until Alphy realises the answer to his confusion is not black and white, it is brown and white.

The other issue that was currently perplexing Alphy was the Olympics. The whole concept seemed incredulous to Alphy. There were Saps who dedicated their lives to such pursuits as running 100 metres faster than any other Sap, anywhere in the world. At one level Alphy who had taken on an anthropomorphic form was amazed at what the human form could achieve, given what Johno would have described ‘as a pretty shithouse design’.

Here was a species that considered themselves intelligent, who set up expensive, well resourced institutes, with the intention to:

• solve world poverty?
• define mechanisms to stop the outbreak of war?
• cure cancer and other common fatal diseases?
• develop universal vaccines to combat any future viruses?

NO, none of the above, instead they were to train athletes to meet once every four years to see if they were faster, higher or stronger than other competitors.

As Johno would have said — ‘What the Fuck’ thought Alphy. If this wasn’t incredible enough, the Saps during a time of rampant worldwide infection were going to send their representatives to concentrated Olympic sites in Japan, where they could co-mingle with a truly international potential Covid cohort. A new Olympic event thought Alphy, Covid Kamikaze.

Alphy was also totally confused as to the logical inconsistency in SCOMO and the Australian Government allowing these athletes to leave Australia. (Alphy wondered if SCOMO was an acronym for Somewhat Comical Outpourings of Mass Obfuscation).

In the same way that Saps had an affinity with dogs, Alphy had developed a fondness for the Saps; albeit the Saps to dog intellect ratio was somewhat minor in comparison.

He decided not to report the Olympic saga back to AC, as he would have been recalled and Earth put into the ‘critically endangered - intervention not warranted’ category.

If he had also mentioned yet another war had broken out, this time in the Middle East, that would have certainly been the end of the Mission.