HuROM 
by 
Ataide Tartari 
(approx. word count: 46,000 words) 

1. 22nd century. Billionaire J.E. Ross IV builds an interstellar spaceship in 
order to go after an alien civilization that is transmitting radio messages--
and also to flee what he calls "a society of coward worms." (He worships 
the tough 19th-century, western lifestyle.) Chris, Janet and George join the 
crew. 

2. Year  5000. 3,000 years later, Ross's expedition returns to Earth. (As 
they traveled at light speed, they aged only 5 years, on-board time.) They 
find Earth uncivilized. There are no cities or vestiges of the old cities. 
There are no humans, only jungle and wild animals. 

3. Two humans arrive to rescue them, explaining what happened: Earth 
has become a preserved garden; the people and the cities were removed; 
the humanity is living in a space city at the Asteroid Belt. 

4. They go to this city, created as a sanctuary to preserve the ultimate 
endangered species, the homo sapiens. The rest of the human race, they 
learn, gave up to the machines: people were converted into "immortal 
souls" (actually, a kind of computer software named Human-ROM). 

5. They are drawn into a conflict, as antagonists: Chris and George remain 
neutral, Janet "Preservationist", and Ross "Techy". The Preservationists 
don't accept any change in the status of the sanctuary where they live, 
while the Techies are more liberal toward the Human-ROMs. 

6. Ross and crew end up as pawns. The Preservationist leader accuses the 
Techy one of telling to the newcomers that the rest of the humanity is not 
dead, which is against the city founder's gospel. 

7. A Human-ROM named Jack arrives in the city and, downloaded into an 
android hardware, secretly meets with Ross. He tells Ross that Lee Katt, 
the city founder, was a despicable populist and now is a Human-ROM 
called Jason Zietner. Jack then meets the opposing leaders and defies both 
of them. 

8. In a hearing, Ross scolds the Preservationists while Janet ends up 
ruining them. Then they realize that Jack is a ROM agent and blame him 
for their debacle. Jack convinces Ross to become a Human-ROM. 
Accompanying Jack, Ross tries to flee the city. After a fight in the 
spaceport Ross finally manages to escape. 

9. In the Human-ROMs' city, Ross is sacrificed and resurrected as one of 
them. He can be in several places at the same time and create his own 
reality, the "synthesized  reality". He encounters several cities that used to 
be on Earth, as well as old monuments of the human civilization. 

10. Several lifetimes later, Ross downloads into a spaceship and goes to 
Earth; it remains wild. Then he flies to the Asteroid Belt city and finds it 
destroyed; the homo sapiens is extinct.