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John : Immortal Engineer: The 5,000 Year-Old Babysitter
[CLASSIFIED SUBJECT JOHN]
Immortal.
Mesopotamia, 3000 BCE.
Detecting "Preventable Stupidity" before it reaches a critical threshold.
For five thousand years, John has watched humans build revolutionary tools, only to paralyze them with bureaucracy and ego. He tried to warn them about the grain rot in Sumeria. He tried to fix the aqueducts in Rome. He was called a madman, a sorcerer, and a heretic.
He was right every single time.
In 1945, the United States government finally ran the numbers. They realized that when John provides a fix, the success rate is 100%. When they ignore him, things explode.
Now, John is the most expensive consultant in history. His price? A decent pastrami sandwich, a pet penguin, and a seat on the Apollo 11 moon landing.
From correcting the math of the Manhattan Project to secretly installing a sarcastic, self-healing symbolic AI in the root of the ARPANET, John is the invisible hand keeping the world from electrocuting itself. He doesn’t fix human nature—he just builds the playpen so the toddlers can't burn the house down.
The full 5,000-year post-mortem is now declassified.
“I’ve been watching you make the same mistakes for five millennia. I'm not a hero. I'm just a tenant who is tired of the neighbors starting grease fires in the kitchen.” — John
Immortal.
Mesopotamia, 3000 BCE.
Detecting "Preventable Stupidity" before it reaches a critical threshold.
For five thousand years, John has watched humans build revolutionary tools, only to paralyze them with bureaucracy and ego. He tried to warn them about the grain rot in Sumeria. He tried to fix the aqueducts in Rome. He was called a madman, a sorcerer, and a heretic.
He was right every single time.
In 1945, the United States government finally ran the numbers. They realized that when John provides a fix, the success rate is 100%. When they ignore him, things explode.
Now, John is the most expensive consultant in history. His price? A decent pastrami sandwich, a pet penguin, and a seat on the Apollo 11 moon landing.
From correcting the math of the Manhattan Project to secretly installing a sarcastic, self-healing symbolic AI in the root of the ARPANET, John is the invisible hand keeping the world from electrocuting itself. He doesn’t fix human nature—he just builds the playpen so the toddlers can't burn the house down.
The full 5,000-year post-mortem is now declassified.
“I’ve been watching you make the same mistakes for five millennia. I'm not a hero. I'm just a tenant who is tired of the neighbors starting grease fires in the kitchen.” — John
395 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 16, 2026
About the author
Marcus Black
53 books3 followersMarcus J Black (MJB) was born in 1977 in Aldershot, England, in the back of a military vehicle. He is passionate about writing, art and the fantasy genre. His other interests include history (both modern and ancient), myths and legends, chess, philosophy, science (particularly physics), martial arts and boxing. He has been a soldier, doorman, truck driver, manager and engineer and holds a master’s degree, which looks nice in its frame. MJB is a fantasy author and creator of the world of Galawi, a place of intrigue, mystery and magic. You can contact him at marcusjblack@live.co.uk
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