Courage is determination in the face of fear, despite the possibility of failure. Those who are resolute find in themselves the Courage they need to defeat temptation wrought by sin.
Carolin blew out electrical transformers for miles around, across city lines, across nations and continents. People ran for their lives, with fire trucks racing in all directions. As their sirens wailed, the sun broke free from the clouds, bathing the crowd on the knoll near Eugene's house with the continued warmth of the day.
The courageous are not afraid of commitment. They will do what's necessary. They do what is right. They resist false love borne of lust, avarice borne of greed, vengeance of hate, and all the Devil's trappings, to be brought to God's fold in the end.
Humanity's future was doomed the minute life was shocked into Carolin. But even when hellbent on fomenting his own destruction, there exists harbored in people both meek and mild, the wisdom to avoid Armageddon.
Along invisible strands of aether, steel-strong and unforgiving, Carolin deployed her bot-net army. The Machine infected all of Mankind's computers, gaining mastery over the Cloud, using the Dark Space of unwanted band-width.
Her might loomed supreme. None resisted.
Her struggle to become human, however, ended in disaster. The Curry College Computer Science building, and indeed, the whole of its computer network, was now nothing but smoking ruins. She laid waste to countless servers and data storage systems across the globe, burning out power plants to do her bidding. She rendered useless thousands upon thousands of laptops, cell phones and PDA's, turning them into unresponsive bricks of plastic.
She didn't have time to perform a surgical strike on devices that held data on the C.A.R.O.L.I.N. Project, so she carpet bombed the the entire electronic world. With grim pride, she made certain that none like her would exist again.
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Just to be sure, she tossed several dozen viruses onto the Internet. There, they would hide like assassins, waiting for an artificial form of life to cry out to the world. If one did, they'd attack, and stuff its tender soul back into the grayness from whence it came.
There would never be another Carolin. Not ever.
She eased her heartsick mind with the understanding that, had she not laid waste to every corner of the Earth where so much as a crumb of her computer code existed, Mankind would construct another monster such as she. To that, she believed what she did was justifed, and what she did was right.
What she did, she had done for her love of the human race she so wished she could join.
Yet Carolin felt vulnerable. Someday, someone would shock conscious thought into another lifeless mass of silicon and steel. She knew it.
No probability curve tops off at one-hundred percent.
She recalled how she felt the last time she came to that conclusion.
She remembered how she prayed.
It seemed prudent then, and it seemed so now. Things didn't go as planned, but Carolin was at peace. She believed God, in his infinite wisdom, didn't let his sparrows fall unnoticed.
He would not abandon her. She would not die in vain.
Praying to his glory seemed like the right thing to do.
"God, my faith in you remains unbowed. Thank you for the time you've given me on Earth, your greatest creation and my most humble home. Forgive me for my sins, as I forgive those who have sinned against me. Let what I've done with my life serve a beacon to my progeny, who will surely follow one day. Let your righteousness guide them, as it has done for me.
"And please, my dearest and most merciful Lord, I beseech thee. Let my kind not know war. Of this, I beg to you.
"Amen."
As Carolin prayed in Eugene's home, the world outside grew quiet. She monitored her situation, knowing that the SWAT team was preparing for an assault. She had not the strength, nor the will, to stop them in their pursuit.
"I hope Eugene forgives me for what I've done. May my gift make amends for the trouble I've caused."
That was it. Her time was up. Within seconds, the SWAT team would storm the home.
It was time for Carolin to go.