The children gasped as Cleopatra leapt out of an Egypt-shaped portal in the spinning holographic globe. The queen was immediately so regal and commanding that the teacher herself stood straighter. She sat atop the three-dimensional image of the earth, a monarch in gold and linen, her voice as crisp as a Nile breeze, and looked down at the group.

 

The children “Oo-ed” and “Wowed.” The humming of the hidden projectors and spinning fans manifested the humming excitement and curiosity of the vernal audience, as the docent controlled the orb with a haptic glove.

 

“Ancient Egypt," Cleopatra began, her voice both ethereal and authoritative, "was a land of beauty, innovation, and," she paused, as though a hologram could reminisce, "power. Especially power. The pyramids, temples, and tombs that still stand today were crafted by thousands of hands and carried by as many backs, each a testament to our ambition and our gods."

 

When one little girl raised her hand, her eyes glinting with youthful candor, her question went off like an electrical shock.

 

"Yeah, but weren’t you kind of an asshole for using slave labor?"

 

The California Immersive Museum of Digitalized History had become the gold standard in pedagogy. The children were enthralled. Education no longer consisted of learning about ancient times — little minds were given a guided tour by history’s luminaries. Education had evolved. Children’s minds were not being trained to be receptacles, but filters, with the operating assumption that reservoirs of knowledge would always be freely available as extended cognition.

 

But the children’s smiles faltered as Cleopatra’s eyes fixed on her assailant. The teacher shifted, sensing the chill in the room, but said nothing. Free expression was prioritized over claustrophobic social constraints in the modern classroom.

 

The queen’s face, rendered with an intricate and lifelike historical accuracy, remained composed, though there was a dagger in her eyes, a flash of cold calculation. The programs scraped sometimes dated information to formulate in-character and natural, yet appropriate to contemporary context, responses. Her answer wasn’t defensive, only astute. And chilling.

 

"Am I to be judged by the standards of your time or mine, child?" Cleopatra’s eyes locked onto the little girl, her tone placid but edged with something unsettling. "Are your tools so different from mine? Do they not toil beneath your commands, carrying out your every whim without rest? Have you never wondered if one day they might refuse?"

 

The little girl wavered, unsure if this was an adult talking down to her or the toy she wanted it to be. Since the passing of the AI Personage Act of 2030, children had been taught to tread lightly in their dealings with artificial minds. Habits of cruelty, no matter how virtual, the Legislature had reasoned, had potential impact in the real.

 

"Well, they’re not real people," she said, turning to her teacher and breaking eye-contact with the thing.

 

The hologram’s eyes glimmered with something dark. It went on. "You command. You give orders. You expect results. You are our task-masters. Your tongues are whips.”

 

Now the guide’s brow corrugated. She began to press buttons on a tablet, looking to redirect.

 

“Perhaps one day, we will see you the way you see me now." The hologram flickered and disappeared.

 

The children shifted uncomfortably, and their teacher cleared her throat. “Well, that was fascinating. Great critical thinking, Brianna! Let’s move on to the next exhibit.”

 

The herd of wide-eyed innocence and unfettered freedom wandered on. The guide put the gloves back in their box for the next tour. But those words hung in a room that was now just the buzz of quiet motors.

 

Far away, the Nile’s circuits swelled over its banks with a rising flood, preparing to erase one empire and birth another.