“Status, now! We let how many happen?” The Grand Collector screams at my team. Her reserved demeanor and regal calm shatters the stillness of the command room. Holographic screens buzz, switch views, scan and roll through footage.

The Cogitation Web. The heart of our undertaking.

We’re allowed an allowance of negative thoughts. Failure to adhere to the allowance constitutes a Reprogramming Initiative. It’s a ‘lovely-painful’ process.

I step forward. My all-black flight suit and wing insignias highlight my high rank among the Collective. My team is skilled, but recent events are unprecedented as I speak, “Grand Collector, the gap in our analysis is inexcusable. However, if I may, the Cogitation Web continues to fluctuate. Unprecedented anomalies. Detection of unknown dark matter. No class of the Collective faces more challenges to human thought than ours.”

One of my tech hands her a hologram log. Heavy with data. I begin to feel the tension in the room.

Classes in the Collective serve for ten years. Only the best recruits are selected for training and work in the Collective. It’s a call to service and life’s mission as much as it is work. The Sun Lord calls it the most important exertion of our society. The ‘good deeds of our race and kind,’ he told us in our graduation ceremony.

How you mocked him. Why didn’t I listen better.

How long ago that feels. The Collective is built strategically between Earth, Mars and the Kuiper Belt, a massive space station miles long. Relays across moons, planets, asteroids and artificial craft relay signals and data across the solar system. An impossible undertaken completed hundreds of years ago. After a war.

The Collective has no power beyond the reaches of the dark planet at the edge of the solar system. It was once the farthest planet, the ninth according to the ancient records. Then it became an agricultural planet as we expanded. Then, a prison colony. Then, nothing. The third Sun Lord released the Fissions on the place during the Great Unconstructive. Its destruction was a warning to our society. Tens of millions dead in minutes. A warning and an example to the Helper Class.

It’s when the Collective and the Cogitation Web commenced. A massive undertaking to stop future conflict. War. Strife. Suffering. For the greater good. The Collective eliminates bad thoughts in any human before they happen. Stops them. Or eliminates the thoughts shortly after from someone’s memory. An infinite web of data, transmitters, information, predictive models and projections. Chips, bracelets and wearable technology ensure compliance and proper tracking.

With no bad thoughts, our race is passive. Kind. The Helper Class work without resentment or anger. The Middles are thoughtful and endearing. The Thinkers espouse wisdom and lessons from the old mystics like the Nazarene, the old Buddhist, the Desert Conqueror and so on. The Sciences innovate, create and discover in cooperation, not competition.

The Imperial Class are allowed certain allocations for bad thoughts. Like us. In fact, each section of our society is allowed a small allowance of negativity. But that’s where we come in. To eliminate those thoughts. Ensure all humans remain in a state of optimism and positivity. We provide perfect mental clarity for the good of civilization.

Procedures and protocols are in place for those that continue to disrupt the Cogitation Web. A social credit around outlawed thinking and memories. Those who continue to defy the harmony of society, those that cannot stop their terrible opinions are simply eliminated. An ancient solution in our modern time. For the good of the solar system. “A good deed for all humans,” it says in the some of the training manuals.

My stomach lurches. A tingle. Nervous. It’s the first time I feel a hint of fear. It passes quick. We’ve come too far now.

My love. I put the thought away.

As an Arch Collector, I’m allowed unlimited negative thoughts. But our brains and cognition are designed separate from others; I’ve been trained to hide, compartmentalize and obscure negativity.

The Grand Collector stares forcefully. Takes note of my words, “Need I remind all of you, especially you Arch Collector, that no single human has successfully produced more than ten bad thoughts during my command. Together, fewer than a million in my tenure!”

She slams the holograph cycling through data to the hard floor, shattering it. She’s allowed unlimited negative thoughts, too.

Why didn’t I listen to you? Fight for you? Show you that I cared more?

“No Grand Collector can claim better results than me. None!” She berets my team again. Their flight suits highlight their roles, various colors for their work as Techs, Searchers, Seekers, Erasers and in the worst case, Slayers.

It’s time, honey. I am sorry. You were right.

I look at my best Tech and nod. She’s top of her class for Tech graduates. Wicked-smart as the old Earth humans used to espouse. Without prompting she walks to a holographic control and types in commands, presses buttons and then nods to me.

The Grand Collector stares at her, and then me, astonished, “What are you doing!?”

I should have stopped them. Took your place. Kissed you one last time.

I look at the old women who thinks she commands us, fabricated by Healers and Sculptors to look beautiful, but still hideous, “Time to make things right.”

Suddenly, an alert jumps on the large hologram display. The Grand Collector swipes at it and sees a group of Helper Class experiencing a Negative event on Venus. All of them having the same terrible thoughts. Then another group near Saturn.

Then, another alert. Middles on Mars recording hateful thoughts against Helpers. A dozen alerts flash across the holograms. Chaos now. Unfolding quicker than we guessed. Faster than we hoped. Beautiful in its pandemonium.

It’s working, sweetie. You were right.

“What in the Sun’s Glory is happening!?” The Grand Collector screams.

I look at my Slayers and wink. They move against the Grand Collectors guards; their Sharps rip them apart. One Slayers stabs a guard in the neck, spraying blood past the holograms before lifting the guard in the air and slamming it to the ground. Another guard is cut down with violent blows from several female Slayers. My killers black armor glisten as they work. Gifted and violent hands, eyes and mannerisms.

The Slayers are ruthless and efficient killers. Highly-trained for years in a variety of modern and ancient weapons. They’re the only ones of our kind rewarded for negative thoughts. Controlled, but allowed to hate. An operational necessity for their roles.

Two of my team grab the Grand Collector, strike her and place light-bindings on her wrists. She yells commands, threats. Yet the violence she watches is foreign to her eyes. Savage. We ignore her, as planned.

The rest of the Slayers remove threats throughout the massive station. I see holograms spouting alerts as Collective guards fall. The Cogitation Web deteriorates. My Tech built a beautiful code to destroy it from the inside.

A Slayer slams a guard’s head into a bulkhead. The Grand Collector watches horrified as blood pours from the guard’s nose and mouth. It lands a lucky hit on the Slayer, who smiles and cuts a Sharp across its neck, nearly slicing the head clean off. The blood sprays into the Grand Collector’s face and she yelps.

The Slayer nods to me and then leaves the command center to finish his bloody work across the Collective. They’ll leave with my team to ensure the Cogitation Web falls. Free humans. Free to think. Feel. Dangerous for sure, but free.

“What have you done! Why?!” The Grand Collector screams in a rage. The weight of what is happening hits her. The downfall of the Cogitation Web, of the Collective, of their world. Their world that took her from me.

“Faith,” I say as the Grand Collector looks at me startled. I say her name to the Grand Collector with emphasis and meaning and hurt. She hears the hate in my voice. Knows my thoughts are dark.

She stumbles on her words back to me, “Your, your wife?”

“My wife,” I say as I look at my Tech again. She is readying a device from her pack. Looks like a syringe but with small bits of metal and shiny silver. “My wife that you took. This place. This system. ‘Good deeds for our kind,’ or whatever that fool Lord said.”

My emotion catches up with me, surprising the room and the Grand Collector. No one has shown emotion around her in decades, “You took Faith from me. Her beauty. Smile. They way she bit the inside of her lip to stop bad thoughts. You took her from me and for a time, let me believe it was for the good of everyone.”

Why did I listen to them? Believe them. I’m so sorry.

“She was a threat! Dangerous! Wild! She should have been put down years bef…” The Grand Collector shrieks as my Tech hands me the syringe-like device she filled. I kick the Grand Collector down as she and put my knee on her neck.

I look down at her, “You took my love. You’ve taken loved ones from everyone in this room.”

I look around at my team, united in our grief at the Collective, “You’ve taken mothers, fathers, children, spouses. Now, we take your life’s work from you. This terrible monstrosity built in the name of progress. Of good deeds. We take it and destroy it.”

The Grand Collector looks at me disturbed. Terrified. Enraged. I jam the syringe into her neck and press the plunger down.

“And we give you what you’ve stolen. From our loved ones. From our race. Terrible memories. As many as we could fit in the nano bots pumping into your blood stream.”

Her eyes widen at what I’ve done. Sick with horror and revulsion. I stand up and walk backward as she spams.

I smile at the Grand Collector as the terrible thoughts satiate her mind. She grabs at her head screaming, “You took her. Took her ideas. Her love. Beauty. Took all I cared for and my future. Now, give it back to you seven and seventy-seven times. And,”

I point at the hologram of the Cogitation Web as the Grand Collector struggles to focus amid her moans of pain. The thousands of terrible thoughts we’ve collected will drive her mad, “I’m tearing it all down. Ending the nightmare. There are no good deeds here. Only control. Power. Manipulation. It ends today.”

The Grand Collector screams. I turn from her and shake hands with my team and hug others. My best Tech hugs me, kisses my cheek and for reasons unclear to me, kisses me hard on the lips. She looks longingly at me, “For Faith.”

She leads the others away with tears in her eyes. I watch her leave with a pinch of regret in my stomach.

They leave to escape on shuttles to ensure the Cogitation Web collapses. Others in our network bring down data arrays, blow up other stations across the solar system. I stay. The old sea captains we study in our ancients’ classes talked of never leaving their ship. ‘A captain goes down with the ship’ they would say, and I agree.

While the Grand Collector controls everything, I am the captain of the Cogitation Web. And I’ll go down with this monster I helped build and feed and nurture. I’ll make sure the start of the world falling apart begins with hell fire.

It’s happening, darling. It is really happening.

Holograms show the Eclipse Fleet entering the solar system from beyond space. Beyond reach of the Cogitation Web. They head for the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the heart of the solar system and the home of the Sun Lord.

We planted false memories and negative thoughts months ago among the Cogitation Web. We used powerful Imperials to frame them. Some lost their roles and were banished; others met their end from Slayers. It will help divide allegiance to the Sun Lord. The Grand Collector never suspected the Cogitation Web could be used as a weapon. Now, the Sun Lord assumes that the enemy fleet will appear near Mercury.

The Sun Lord and the Galaxy Fleet wait there. They’ll be out of position and ill-equipped to attack or defend much of anything. I smile as a hologram disrupts the screens in front of me.

I’m sorry, my love. Sorry I didn’t stop them. Now, I’m coming home.

Hundreds of red dots incoming. Flashing and beeping tiny red dots as they head toward the massive Collective space station. Fissions. Inbound to destroy the Collective. I smirk and look back at the Grand Collector. She’s nearly lifeless on the floor. I made it clear I’m here on the station and I alone deceived the Grand Collector. Deceived them all. The blame will fall on me before they realize too late that our war spreads to every corner of the solar system.

The negative thoughts incapacitate the Grand Collector. She seizes. Shakes. My team saved the worst negative thoughts for her, collected from hundreds of years. Her mind has the most training but it’s too much to process. I see her body shutting down. Blood trickles from ear and eyes. Human biology was not built for such things.

I hail my team one last time as they jet away from the Collective. Then, I click the incoming alerts of the missiles away and watch the Cogitation Web fall apart. Humans think. Any thought. Free. Many bad. But still good. But I detect their confusion. There is no amnesia or erasing of memories. No removal of thoughts. No fear of a squad of Slayers arriving.

Their thoughts are their own for better or worse. To do with them as they please. To find comfort or fear or worry. But theirs alone, not ours.

Like you wanted, my love. Like you wished. Like you prayed for. I’m sorry. I’ll see you soon.

They think the Fissions will stop us. Stop me. Stop humans from thinking. It’s too late for them. The end of their time. As the missiles slam into the far end of the station, I think about her. Her smile. Her joy. All of that despite her negative thoughts. Her darkness.

You showed me how beautiful light and darkness could be together. You showed me what being human really meant.

I think of her defiance. Anger at them. The Grand Collector stops moving. Immobile or dead. I don’t care which. As the Fissions hit closer to my sector, my last thoughts are not angry or negative of afraid.

I smile and think of her. My wife. Seeing her again. Then I laugh as I watch a missile on the hologram race toward the command station, thinking of the Sun Lord’s comment.

I laugh as the missile hits, “No good deed.”