"Before we proceed to the core of today's conference, I would like to select a few audience members just to hear their opinions on the composition that was played earlier."

    Marcus Johnson typed a command into his Bracelet and a hologram of a random number generator was projected behind him. Then a few seat numbers were selected.

    "If this gentleman of seat Alpha 28, this lady of Beta 15, the gentleman of Epsilon 03, and the gentleman of Theta 21 would please voice your opinions into the microphone."

    "Epsilon 03! It's that suspect over there!" Alexandra motioned to the team.

    Michael, on the other hand, was more interested in the demographics of these four seats. These "random selections" ironically contained no Hypersphere employees, but included a few unionists.

    The Alpha 28 gentleman was a technologist. He addressed how beautiful the song was and then began to change the topic to technology, saying how technology helped artists compose songs nowadays. Then he completely deviated from the original topic and began the rant on how technology would benefit mankind.

    Then the microphone drone flew over to the Beta 15 lady and hovered in front of her. From the way she dressed, it could be seen that she was a hardcore unionist. She also complimented the composition and started to talk about how she could hear an unemployed laborer suffering poverty from the rise and fall of the melody.

    How surprising, Michael thought, that two people could perceive such different messages from the same song.

    Jay tapped Michael's shoulder to direct his attention to the suspect. The drone flew in front of the suspect. The suspect seemed to suddenly jerk awake and breathed heavily. His mouth opened but no sound came out.

    Before the awkward silence last enough to get the attention from the rest of audience's attention, Marcus Johnson helped the man out, "Your opinions sir?"

    "Uh... Yeah... Uh... I mean the song... It was beautiful. Definitely worth listening too..." He trailed off.

    "Thank you for your feedback." Once again, Johnson seemed to be helping the man to avoid unwanted attention. Had it been any other man that Johnson was helping, Michael would be in awe of Johnson' emotional quotient and social consideration, but this time the man was a suspect who could be potentially assassinating Johnson himself. Michael felt a ripple of regret while watching Johnson's kindness been manipulated against him. Wasn't this how trust began to deteriorate in the first place?

    On the other hand, Michael felt like he misjudged ArtTech with its stereotype the moment that he saw the ArtTech building. Due to his poverty, Michael had never gotten to see anything ArtTech. Even his Bracelet was Hypersphere because of the relatively more affordable prices. Perhaps it was that he wanted to blindly convince himself that he had made the right decisions, or perhaps he was jealous of those wealthy ones who could afford ArtTech products, but Michael had always held this stereotypical image of ArtTech as an extreme right-winged technologist who saw all forms of art as useless to humanity and who believed that technology companies should dominate the world. However, from what Michael had perceived so far, ArtTech was not only creative, orderly, but they also got a CEO who was empathetic. It was no longer surprising to Michael how ArtTech could rise to the global summit.

    Michael glanced around. The microphone drone already flew to the fourth person, but this time, a group of four young adults took the microphone. Michael briefly recognized them from somewhere. What was it? Yes, he remembered. It was a contemporary R&B band. They were somewhat famous and made their debut on the TV before.

    They took over the microphone. Apparently some other people recognized them, and they shouted their name. Then more people turned their heads and listened attentively to what they were about to say.

    The lead singer took the microphone and cleared his throat. "Hello everyone. If you recognized us, you would probably know that we are the Neon Mirrors. We appreciated ArtTech's selection of such a wonderful piece of music." He pointed towards Marcus Johnson and the crowd once again erupted into applause.

    Then the lead singer motioned towards his team, "Everybody in the band here held at least a degree or two on music, and we have all reached the conclusion that this is one of the most elegantly composed piece played with the most passion. We heard a mix of Beyer, Czerny, and Bach, but we are uncertain of who blended them so perfectly together. Nonetheless, we pay our highest respect to the composer and performer. This piece showed how music is such an indispensable part of our lives."

    Everybody applauded again and nodded their heads in agreement. 

    "Thank you all for your valuable input of opinions," Marcus Johnson spoke with a genuine tone and flashed a presidential smile. The holograms all around the room were now projecting a closed up shot of his face. Michael didn't pay attention earlier but now that he had taken a zoomed in look, Johnson was a rather ideal figure that was suit for magazine photoshoots and red carpets. 

    Despite his age in his early forties, Johnson was an extremely well-built man that evidently kept his shape with frequent gym visits, as reflected by the sharp contour of an upside-down trapezoid given by his broad shoulders as he stood in his suit. His facial features were well-defined — he had brown, almond eyes that seemed to be carefully engraved to present a feel of depth alongside his finely crafted nose. Below his radiant killer smile was a strong jawline. Intentionally maintained 5 o'clock shadow added a tone of attractive maturity.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

    "History," Johnson spoke. His deep powerful voice echoed around the auditorium, "Has always been based upon centralization."

    A history speech again! Michael immediately remembered how Amelia had given him the big speech about the stages of technological revolution. Was Johnson going to do the same?

    "Before humans even became civilized, they had formed themselves into groups of hunters and gatherers. Then with the advance of agriculture, each family centered their means of production around farming. The hunters and gatherers of every family began to work on the same piece of land."

    Although it was another history lesson, but Michael found this one a lot more magnetizing. Perhaps it was because Johnson's voice oscillated around the room with explosive charisma. Everybody in the audience seemed to be fascinated by the concept that he was introducing.

    "Then let's fast forward through history. Civilizations begin to have large farms to substitute for individuals working on their own lands. Then a leader was born to rule the tribe of people. After that, a centralized government took over and established a local market and a standardized legislation. Small farms became big farms. The feudal castle walls broke down as farming villages united with their neighbors to form a big nation. England is my city, but it used to be a nation, and before that, a region filled with many battling kingdoms and city-states. Politically speaking, our governing body is centralized into a global government."

    "Economically speaking, the individual craftsmen and artisans got together to form a central market to buy and sell products. The market economy soon expanded to global size. Colonies were formed. Industrialization took place and the artisans and laborers got grouped together into bigger houses called factories to work together with greater productivity."

    Michael was now glad about how Amelia educated him on the history of technological evolution. It aided him to understand this mesmerizing speech of Johnson's.

    "However, we saw that one factory wasn't enough. So we grouped the factories, the mediators, the advertisers, and other facilities and positions into one big company. This was so until we realized that, wouldn't it be nice if the companies that were producing similar products were headed by one macro office? Therefore, ArtTech corporation had combined the sectors of digital education, utility application, cyber defense, work processor, and other important AI fields."

    Jay tapped Michael slightly and looked towards that unionist suspect earlier. Right now, the suspect looked extremely nervous. He was sweating heavily, and his muscles were extremely rigid. Instead of sitting comfortably in the chair like the rest of the people, he put a lot of his weight on his front feet and tilted his body towards the central walkway, as if he was ready to sprint off at any given second.

    Nobody else noticed the suspicious actions of that man. Everyone seemed to be completely drawn in by Johnson's presentation. Even the security guards would steal glances towards the hologram projection.

    "As the current chief executive officer of ArtTech, I believe that I'm not only serving all employees of ArtTech, but I'm also serving each and every member of the society."

    The suspect began to pull something out of his pocket. Michael could see a black rectangle, but it didn't look like a pistol.

    "ArtTech had centralized all the essential parts of the AI industry because we believed in one single creed — through centralization, we could offer a more superior quality with greater quantity."

    The technologists and ArtTech employees all began cheering fervently for their CEO and their idol. Meanwhile, the other people were clapping out of pure politeness. The suspect held out that black rectangle. It looked like... a remote control.

    "Now, we wanted to evolve the steps of centralization once more. We wanted to explore beyond the fields in technology, math, and science sectors."

    A rumbling wave of anger began to sound from people as the intelligent ones realized what was about to happen. Some people cried out furiously while some cheered louder. The suspect reached out and pressed a few buttons on the remote control.

    "Wouldn't life carry so much more quality and efficiency if artificial intelligence could aid humans not only in the jobs of analysis but also in the tasks of creating new masterpieces."

    The unionists began shouting loudly in protest. The celebrities and artists in the middle had already stood up and pumping their arms angrily. The mere fact of artificial intelligence encroaching into the fields of art and humanities was unthinkable. Besides, it was ArtTech who would be in charge of this. This meant that the whole society's economy would be under the control of one corporation. By then, almost one hundred percent of the workforce would be replaced. It would be one step closer towards the Singularity.

    "I therefore present to you our newest product! An artificial intelligence program that was capable of creating its own musical piece. We are proud to announce its first creation — the beautiful piano song that you have all heard and greatly complimented — The Allegro De Vive for Piano No. 2 in C sharp. Or, as I would like to call it, the Sonata of Singularity."

    The audience exploded. Some were cheering and clapping while some were cursing and booing. The liberal arts people who had earlier complimented the song were now feeling ashamed, as if they had been cheated out of their knowledge. Others were extremely terrified by the power of this new AI program and believed that it would threaten their jobs. There were also some who were extremely glad to see human technology had progressed by one more important step. This mixture of excitement and rage shook the floors. Johnson was just standing there, bowing with his charismatic radiance, as if he had just finished a proud performance.

    Meanwhile, Michael's team was completely focused on what the suspect was about to do. So far, the suspect still didn't notice the four pairs of eyes glanced tightly on him, or at least that was what it seemed. He continued to point the remote-like device towards the stage.

    Jay signaled for the team to be quiet. He carefully removed the hairpin from Alexandra's hair. With a dexterous flick, he opened the two halves of the hairpin like a butterfly knife, and as his hand pushed against the side, a beam of focused laser of fifteen centimeters in length.

    Advancing with the elegance of a dancer and the silence of a preying tiger, Jay snuck up behind the unionist. He raised the knife slowly, careful not to make any sound. Before Jay's plan could work, however, the suspect suddenly turned around, and a powerful energized blast of light emitted out of his device. Jay immediately fell down on the floor, covering his eyes in pain.

    Less than a millisecond later, Michael's eyes were also hit. Everything was so bright all of a sudden, as if the world around him burned with white flames. Michael immediately blocked his eyes with his hands, but it was no use. He felt the world spinning around him and the floor slamming into his face. He could not comprehend what was going on, but he could hear Alexandra's and Nicholas' screams too.

    Then amid the blindness and dizziness came other people's loud shouts, then screams, then sounds of heavy things crashing against each other. Michael opened his eyes a little and saw gunshots from plasma guns, then people shouting in pain, then more gunshots and fistfights.

    It was a world filled with chaos.