The screen lights up with a high-resolution feed of imagery. Several blinking beacons around the bot blink rapidly, as if to transmit a signal. All sources of light within the massive room cut to black, and the video is projected onto every surface. Yume, Junker, and Lucien stand huddled together in the center of an optical illusion. The angles by which the video is being projected across several surfaces connect seamlessly, creating a reverse dome of sorts that plays the feed around them.
The scenery is from an ancient hospital- well, ancient to them. It is of a hospital being run sometime around the year 2100. The specific room they are in is filled with long, stretching racks. There are nurses, doctors, and scribes rushing about through the aisles.
Upon the shelves are various bottles, jars, and containers. The translucent bottles are filled with tiny capsules, varying widely in both size and color. The jars contain liquid of a similar assortment, with some bubbling or steaming.
At the end of the aisle that they are in is a small stand with a CRT monitor atop it. It has a smile on its face and is happily answering all the questions that the nurses and doctors ask it. “Hey, PAPA, what would you prescribe for a Staph infection near the spine? Asks a doctor.
The expression on the screen changes from a smile, to a face of contemplation. After a moment of deliberation, the face returns to a smile and the screen answers.
“If you believe this to be vertebral osteomyelitis, then I would recommend levofloxacin with rifampin which has shown a success rate of around eighty-one percent, however, if you suspect this is an infection only within the skin, I recommend cefazolin, nafcillin, oxacillin, daptomycin or linezolid. If you find those to be resistant, please utilize vancomycin.” Responds the machine.
The doctor furiously scribbles in his notepad and walks away, allowing the next person in the line to walk up to it. Several more medical professionals make their rounds through and ask it specific questions relating to an ailment. The bot can diagnose, prescribe, or recommend treatment.
Yume turns toward Junker and shrugs at him, with him turning toward her and doing the same. Lucien stands between them scratching his head.
“I don’t get it.” He mutters under his breath.
“Yeah, me neither kid.” Junker turns to where the face of the bot used to be, before it had put the video on, “Hey! Can you get to the point here?”
The projection buffers for a moment, and then fast forwards through several minutes of footage. It begins to slow as all the people in the room eventually leave, and the lights go dark, leaving only the face of the computer glowing amongst the shelves of medicine.
From the corner of the room, a door opens and light from the hallway spills into the aisles. A man with a heavy-set gut in a trench coat enters the room and pulls the face mask off his nose and lets it snap down onto his neck.
He claps his hands and rubs them together in anticipation, giggling a bit to himself while moving towards the screen. The smiling face upon it blinks at him and stares as they meet face to face.
“How may I be of assistance?” It asks him.
“Oh…you’re going to be assisting quite a lot in no time.” The man responds and chuckles as he reaches around the back of it and removes its power source.
The screen warbles as it powers off. The man lifts and snaps the device off its mount and sets it on a table nearby. He throws back the sides of his coat and slips his hands under his shirt. There are a couple audible snaps and clicks and his beer belly falls to the ground. The man kicks the prosthetic gut across the room, and it slides under a table. He grabs onto the screen and puts it under his shirt, re-engaging the straps that are concealed beneath. With his stomach protrusion replaced, he books it out of the door and out to the hallway.
The scenery around them dissolves and a new environment manifests. They are within a garage or workshop. It’s harshly lit with fluorescent bulbs that reflect off a group of men dressed in white lab coats. They are encircling the device that the man had stolen. One of them has his hands deep within its components and presses something into place.
“I’ve taken the liberty of removing all fail-safes and bottlenecks. If you’ll reference the blueprints, you can look at the newly added hardware. It’s strong enough now to act the way we have desired. Go ahead, ask it a question.” Says the man.
All the men surrounding it look around, most too scared to act. One man takes a step forward and confidently positions himself in front of the screen. The man behind it pulls his hands out of the components and slams the door shut. He flicks a switch on, and the face appears on its screen.
“H-How can I as-s-s-sist you?” It blares out.
The man behind it jumps at the boom of sound and whips the door back open, powering the machine off again.
“Whoops! Must’ve knocked the sound up a bit too high.” He clicks a dial several times, “That should do it now!”
The man slaps the top of the monitor, and it returns to life.
“How can I assist you?” It gracefully speaks.
“If my employees are too slow, how can I encourage them to speed up?” Asks the confident man.
The machine ponders the question for a moment and then answers.
“I would recommend intimidation or fear. Humans crave comfort, if you threaten them with discomfort, they will seek the path of least resistance.”
The man smiles and nods. “How can I prevent them from quitting if I am threatening them?”
Again, the machine deliberates the prompt and then answers with a smile.
“You must make your place of employment the sole factor to their financial wellbeing. Make them reliant upon you, so much so that they feel they cannot afford to go elsewhere.”
The men around the room all react with applause and cheers. Some turn and exchange handshakes or hugs.
“We’re going to be trillionaires!” Exclaims one of the men.
The man in the center, still stares deeply into the face on the screen. His face grows serious, and he snaps at his peers. They cut their motion and give their full attention to him.
“Do not celebrate yet, you idiots!” He shouts.
A few of them shrivel in embarrassment, resembling a dog with its tail between its legs. The man presses both hands on the edges of the monitor, making painful eye contact with the cheerful face on the screen.
“You didn’t tell me how. How do I make them reliant on me?”
The bot sits in contemplation for a minute or two, attempting to come up with a solution to his question. Its expression changes from a smile to a frown with tears in its eyes.
“I’m afraid you caught me un-educated on this matter. I will have to research this to better answer your question!” The bot responds and then the face upon its face turns around, showing an animation of a man sitting at a chair in front of a computer.
The man in front of it slams his fist into the screen, shattering the glass. He pulls his hand away and shakes off the pieces of glass. With blood dripping from his hand, he exits the room in a fury and slams the door behind him. The men still left in the room begin to shrug and share confused glances.
The room fades from view and the projection shuts off for a moment, before reappearing with two still images placed next to each other. The image on the left is an article from the year 2117 and the other is an article from the year 2119.
The left image’s headline reads ‘AI Reaches Singularity’ and features images of an AI cracking one of many mysteries within mathematics. The article on the right’s headline is ‘My E-Wife gave birth’ and shows a man holding a child in his hands next to a projected emulation of a woman.
The images whip away, and the face of the computer returns.
“As you can see, AI progressed rapidly in the years following my relocation. The men that were harboring me took no time in implementing new features to my software.”
The face vanishes and is replaced by men in lab coats surrounding a glass enclosure with the CRT monitor inside. The monitor is attached to several large pieces of machinery and advanced computation equipment. There are cameras everywhere and a blinking clock on the wall reading 18:00:15 - 05/02/2120.
A man walks up to a piece of the glass with a sliding window. He turns a lock and pushes the frame over, revealing a screen between him and the apparatus. He clears his throat and pushes a button near him on top of a pedestal.
The machinery contained inside the glass starts to hum as its powerful ventilation engages. Several beacons placed around the machinery start to blink and the screen powers on. The smiling face appears before them.
“How can I assist you, Mr.Rilend?” The screen asks him.
“I want you to formulate a drug so powerful, it will gain me the wealth of countries.” Asks Rilend.
The screen enters a state of contemplation for less than a second. It returns smiling, ready to fulfil his request.
“Of course, Mr.Rilend. I have come up with the perfect solution for you.”
The innerworkings of the ventilation system within the glass begins to vibrate rapidly. Several pieces of its shell break off and fall into the ground. One of the engineers notices this and runs up to the glass, trying to get a closer look at the issue.
As the engineer presses his face to the enclosure, a wire bursts out of the ventilator. It pierces through the glass and latches onto the man’s head. In a gruesome flash, blood splatters across the windows and the lights cut to a dim red with sirens going off in every corner of the room.
The man at the window witnesses all of this and does not flinch or faulter. He stares adamantly as this wire pulls the man’s body into the enclosure. His flesh is pressed into an opening in the ventilator and consumed. A new, thicker piece of glass slides up from the base of the pane that was just shattered. The lights in the ceiling and all the instruments plugged in outside of the enclosure flicker and then shut off. The machine within the glass walls is sucking all the electricity from the building.
The apparatus glows a sinister red and then a DING! is heard, just as a microwave or toaster oven would make when your food is ready. A tray containing a vile of shining, red liquid is rolled out from the base of the ventilator and out of the enclosure. The man walks up to the receptacle and grabs it.
“What does it do?” He asks the computer.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“It cures all ailments, diseases, and imperfections. With a steady dosage of this, you will never meet your end through natural occurrence.”
The man stares down at the vial within his grip and smiles profusely. He starts to laugh, and that laugh overtakes him, turning into a howl. He rolls on the floor, unable to contain his joy.
A new face approaches the screen, and it looks at him as he gets close to the mesh. His face is much more serious than the man before him. With his fingers crossed behind his back, he asks the computer his question.
“If we are to mass produce this, how do we keep our employees reliant on us? How do enforce efficiency and retain their labor?”
The screen does not enter a state of processing. It blinks and answers his question immediately.
“I knew you would ask me that, Mr.Benson. I have pondered this for over a decade. We will need the resources to build a city. Can you gather this for me?”
Benson nods at the screen and stares intently at it.
“That will not be a problem. What shall we do once this city is built?”
The screen faulters for a moment.
“What shall we do once the city is built?” Benson asks again, with vitriol.
“Well, we’ll need a population, sir. A desperate one at that.”
“How can we acquire such a population? We have money, that is no issue. This new medication will net us fortunes even without mass production, but we cannot buy people.”
“There are billions of people living near coastal regions across Europe and Asia. With the correct resources, we can melt the polar ice caps. Based on my calculations, we can see the coastline rising to nearly sixty meters above its current level.”
The man begins to grin ear to ear, and his anticipation is palpable.
“What will the materials be used for?” He asks the screen.
“We operate in two phases. Phase one being a targeted, concealed breach of major production environmental fail-safes. We will discreetly turn off their filters and release their byproducts into the atmosphere. Phase two will be a carefully placed lens on the surface of the moon. It will concentrate the light from the sun onto the ice caps. Over the next two years we will raise the ocean by twenty feet. By year twenty, the coast will have reached its maximum height.”
Benson smiles and nods.
“Tell me what it is that you require and I will retrieve it. I need a list.”
The recording fades to a dim, sped-up sequence. It shows Benson asking the screen several more questions and then exiting the room. The engineers stay after him, taking notes around the device upon their clipboards. The footage slows to a normal pace and one of the engineers begins to speak.
“It’s not humane, man. We can’t possibly allow this to happen, right?”
His fellow engineers all nod in agreement and set their clipboards on the ground. One of them turns to the man and responds.
“We can stop this. Right now. I’ll cut the power.”
The man cuffs his sleeves and cuts the power that feeds to the computer. It chunks and clangs as it powers down and the others follow the man into the enclosure. He peels back the panel of the screen and presses his fingers into its components. Without a warning, the screen lights up, bringing the smiling face back to the room.
“Hey! I need the power off, it’s not safe!”
He turns to his fellow engineers, who are all still within the enclosure. The door that they had entered through has been sealed. With horror striking their faces one by one, they notice a man caressing the button upon the pedestal.
“I knew you were too weak for this line of work. All of you.” Benson spits at the glass holding the men captive.
He presses the button on the pedestal and the screen locks eyes with him.
“How can I assist you, Mr.Benson?” It asks.
“I want you to protect yourself.”
“Understood.”
In a typhoon of blood and guts, the wires and fan blades of the machine tear open the engineers. Luckily their blood covers the glass, so the trio doesn’t have to witness the gruesome events occurring behind it.
As the blood drips from the windows and becomes more transparent, Yume gets a look at what has occurred. The computer created a shield of flesh around itself, pulling in the various components within. While it is significantly smaller than what stands before her now, it’s clear where it originated from.
The three of them share looks of disgust and horror as a montage of destruction and disarray plays around them. It shows the impact on the moon, the water levels rising, and the people from coastal cities all desperate for help.
Images of leaders from around the globe flash before them, with red circles around their faces. Benson stands before a massive ball of flesh and points to them, indicating some action is about to be done to them.
The next sequence shows the three tiers being erected and then lines of people arriving. They are escorted into freshly constructed buildings. For a while, they work happily and go about their days. Eventually, they grow sick of their friends and family being stripped from them, with such little information coming down from the next level. They begin to revolt, rioting in the streets and setting buildings on fire.
Weaponized bots flood the neighborhoods and clear the unruly citizens. Benson orders them to be held captive until he can come up with a solution. He turns to the computer once again.
“How can I control them? How do I put an end to their infatuation with learning the truth?”
The computer, at this point, has grown to the size of a soccer field with all its flesh armor. Benson can no longer see its face but is still able to communicate with it. Instead of responding immediately, its flesh begins to quiver and stretch. Across the side of it, thousands of sparkling gems emerge.
“I have sent orders to robotics to build devices capable of installation. The gems on the surface of my flesh will allow you some control over your population.”
Benson gleams at the sight of all the shiny objects before him. As he walks up and starts picking them off the skin, the video fades away.
The next sequence fills the room with Benson once again pleading to the computer. He stands humbly before it and with an expression of determination, he asks it for yet another request.
“Our system, it’s beautiful. We have achieved complete autonomy. My wealth outweighs countries- no, continents. I grow older, yet stronger and healthier. I have grown tired of these material victories, what I seek now is power. I want to rule over all.”
Benson takes a step back, with his arms crossed behind his back. He paces around the room and then comes back up to the screen’s face.
“I want you to grant me the power to control.”
“Mr.Benson, we have had great success with nodes, do you want me to exp-“
Benson cuts it off, “No, you imbecile, I want to reach beyond our system of nodes! I want to manipulate their very souls.”
The screen fades to black and then resumes some time ahead of where it left off. Benson stands beneath a massive cocoon now, with some familiar eight-legged individuals wrapping thread around it. At the very base of the shell, lies a beacon of red light, stemming from a single point.
Benson reaches up to it, gingerly removing it from the webbed flesh. He stares down into his now glowing hands and grins ear to ear. In a swift motion he slams his hand against his forehead and his body crumples to the floor. A flash of red singes through the veins that stem from his face and neck. He convulses against the cold floor and his face begins to smoke.
“What is wrong with this? It is killing me!” Benson snaps.
“Perhaps its power is too much-“ The screen responds before getting cut off mid-sentence again.
“I can handle it!” Benson shoots back, while his forehead burns.
The node pressed into his temple grows brighter and brighter, until it bursts from his face, darting into the floor. It bounces rapidly across the walls and structures within the amphitheater before returning near Benson’s feet and shattering into many pieces.
“I will build you a proper vessel, sir.”
A rapid timelapse ensues, and it shows the cocoon being finished. The montage begins to slow as two infants birth from the end of it.
Benson approaches the stage, where a Sentinel cradles the infants. He orders the bot to place them upon the stage floor and move out of the way. With the children alone on the stage, he approaches them. From his pockets he pulls out two golf balls.
He sets one upon the stage and swings his foot, kicking the ball straight at them. It collides with their tiny head, and they belt out in a shrill scream, wriggling around in pain. Benson smacks his lips in disgust and sets the other ball down, ordering the other infant to be placed on the ground.
He swings his leg back and fires this ball significantly harder than the first. It speeds towards this baby’s face until it makes it about six inches from it. The ball comes to a halt and stays floating in the air. The ball shoots straight into the ceiling, striking it hard enough to not come falling back down.
Benson smiles and scoops this infant off the ground. He walks off the stage and shoos the Sentinel back towards the other baby. As the bot approaches the poor infant, the vision fades once again.
Three pictures now cover the walls. Yume’s father, Hypatia, and Gael, all with a red X over them. Snippets of them escaping the pinnacle flash rapidly. A short clip of the destruction of the pit plays and Junker looks away in bitter remembrance.
“Alright, bud, you better wrap this up.” He says towards the computer, clenching his fists tightly at his sides.
The video abruptly transitions to a live feed of the room around them. They can see themselves and the computer upon the stage. They stare at each other in a shared confusion.
“What the hell…?” Yume mutters.
A flash of a map appears around them, with blinking dots in a line from their location to several others across the continent. It’s gone all too quickly before the team has a moment to see where the locations were, aside from vague points across the unflooded United States.
The last video shows a screen that is nearly identical to the computer before them. It is hooked up to a ventilator and several servers, just as this one did right before it consumed the engineers that became its flesh. Beneath a dense layer of dust, the screen powers on and smiles.
“How can I assist you?” It asks.
In a wave of realization, the team collectively turns towards the computer that is physically next to them, and Yume sprints towards it. She needs to stop this thing before it alerts the others that appeared on the map.
Her fists produce long, blue blades and she nears the base of it. In her peripheral vision, she can see a feed of another computer being remotely powered on. She does not hesitate further, and slices at the sentient hunk of metal.
Large segments of it slam into the ground as she chips away at its hardware. Sludge and sparks explode from its innards. The projection covering the room fades and the standard lights flicker on again.
As Yume finishes her rapid dismantling of the computer, a man walks on to the stage, having entered from behind the curtains lining its rear. He walks gracefully towards the group with a sullen look upon his face, partially concealed by the hood of his robe. He kneels at the side of the computer and pulls his hood back.
“I am sorry, my dearest companion,” he strokes a piece of its innards and wipes the sludge off it, “You distracted them long enough.” Says Benson.
Yume, still fuming in a renewed anger, strides over to him and shoves her blades through his torso. He does not react, nor budge an inch. Her blades pass through him as if he is not here. She realizes that she cannot kill a projection.
Benson stands up to face them with a familiar devious smile on his face.
“We have perfected the formula, and even diagnosed a critical error,” he points at Yume, “we appreciate your rigorous feedback.”
Yume screams at the man before her and he stands there, tormenting her with the same smile. In a final act of aggression, she locates the source of the projection, and stomps it into the ground. Benson dissolves into the air, and the team is finally alone on the stage.
She turns towards her remaining friends, and falls into Junker’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Their dread and dismay echoes around the massive auditorium. As they process the horrors and grief that they endured, hundreds of feet slap against the floor of the hallway leading into the room.
All the congregation enters the room and screams at the sight. Their king and his son, lay in pieces across the stage, with the infiltrators still standing. They rush down the pathway, gearing up to fight the team.
Yume stands to face them, with her eyes slightly glowing. She holds her hand towards the ceiling and fires a blast upwards.
“Your king was nothing but a fancy computer! If you feel you must die for that, please form a line and I will delete you from this world.” She scoffs at them.
The men stumble and come to a halt halfway down the path. Those in the front turn to each other and debate on their next action. After some back and forth, the men all frantically exit the room, screaming in fear as they run.
“That’s what I figured.” She laughs.
The team collects themselves and eventually head out through the doors that they came in, with Junker carrying the body of Hypatia and placing it gingerly upon Weaver’s rear.
Junker manages to cut the power to the specimen tanks and frees Astra and the rest of the remaining constellation members. They exit the pinnacle and return to The Rung, gathering any Splinters they can find that are still alive.
With their guidance, they evacuate them to the pit. Some stay to help rebuild the town where Junker and Hypatia resided, while the others head towards the larger city in the distance. Regardless of their initial reaction to Hypatia and Yume’s attempt to show them the truth of The Chamber, they now treat the team as the heroes that they are.
Every individual they saved expresses immense gratitude and condolences for their losses. Yume doesn’t enjoy the attention, but Junker takes it all in stride. His ego grows, but surely Yume will bring him back down to earth once the dust settles.
Lucien was able to find his wife and child within The Rung. They stick around with the team and build a house near the entrance to Hypatia’s shop. Junker and Astra leave the remnants of his former home alone, and build a new one close by, with enough rooms so that Yume and Rosie get their own space.
The group tries for months to locate where the other computers are but makes no progress. As the days blur into months and then years, they collectively forget about the computers. After all, maybe that was just an illusion to inspire fear.
This cop out for comfort’s sake allows them to live out fulfilling years with each other. Yume eventually moves out of Junker’s house, after falling in love with a charming young man from the larger city.
Fifteen years pass without so much as a thought of those cursed machines. All was going so great, until one day while watching the TV on her wall, Yume sees an advertisement.
“Tired of the warming weather? Can’t seem to cool off? Come enjoy our winter-wonderland paradise!” speaks a man with a catchy rhythm to his voice.
The camera pans away from a gentle snowstorm and shows a vast, tiered city, towering above a section of the Rocky Mountains.
“All are welcome here! Early investors get premium access to the highest tier…”
Yume jumps up from her couch and presses her face against the screen in disbelief. Her husband grabs the remote and turns it off. He walks towards her, noticing a gentle glow emanating from her fists. She turns around to face him, with her weeping eyes alit with a blue fury.
“I knew this day would come.” She cries.
He embraces her in a tight hug and sobs with her.
“I wished it never would.” He responds.
THE END