The mid-morning sun shone down from between a set of office buildings as it reflected off a tall glass building. There on the face of the building were the letters “ARM” in big red bold, facing the street. Right below the sign was the entrance to the building, a set of glass sliding doors that led into a security checking area.
Right now, under the warm embrace of the morning sun, and the cooling autumn breeze, a crowd of reporters were gathered in front of a small podium that had been erected in front of the building. The street was jam packed with news vans, employee vehicles and plenty of electronic equipment, with wires running amok, strewn in a haphazard fashion on the ground.
As soon as the clock struck 10, the doors to the building slid open as a smartly dressed man came waltzing out. With each confident step, the reporters began snapping pictures while the security team held them back. The man seemed to be of great importance, sporting an unshaven beard and yet, a pair of frameless glasses that made the intellectual look. As he stepped up to the podium, the crowd fell silent, waiting to hear his opening speech.
“Greetings everyone. Now as many of you may already know, I am Walter Kresler, CEO of Advanced Robotics and Mechatronics. Now our company has made several breakthroughs in the past few decades, like the Medicube, or the exoskeleton suit. Our company has always put forth its best efforts in developing technology of the future, and we have the best minds in the world to help make that a reality. Our company has seen substantial growth, expanding our branches from mere industrial robots, to the field of medicine and even to peacekeeping uses. But today, I have the honour of representing our RnD team, in introducing their latest and most advanced breakthroughs yet. Combining prototypes from past projects, we have finally created a one of a kind, artificial intelligence integrated, Material fabrication enabled, completely autonomous, robot!”
With the speech, a loud applause rang out as reporters continued to take snapshots of the genius billionaire programming extraordinaire, Walter Kresler. Then, a team of 3 men and 2 women came marching out of the entrance, surrounding a grey and white robot that walked its way towards the stadium.
“Now, as much as I would like to take credit for this,” Walter continued, placing his hand on the 2.5m tall humanoid robot standing next to him, “I only played a small role in its programming. Most of the hardwork is done by my dedicated research team who had been working on this for the past 15 years. Their dreams and visions have finally come to fruition, so without further ado, I shall read from these notes that they have written for me,” he laughed, waving a stack of cards in the air, “and explain to you the features that this robot has to offer!”
“To start off, it has a lightweight chassis made of a magnesium alloy, super durable to boot, and has a storage capacity of 64 zettabytes, the highest memory space ever to be put into a single computing unit. Over the past 2 months, this guy here has been busy downloading every single piece of information that mankind has ever recorded. He can perform millions of simulations of experiments, calculate variables, and perform virtual experiments based on parameters given within milliseconds. Truly a high end piece of tech if I must say so myself. He has carbon nanotube muscle fibres, capable of lifting up to 3000kg. But I wouldn’t want to bore you with more of the usual specs. I want to go on to the really exciting parts! On his back, he has what our team has termed the Material backpack. It is actually nothing more than a thin slab of Osmium-platinum alloy. And his hands can be modified to form a fabrication arm. By fusing our fabrication machine technology into this robot, he can create virtually almost anything with his hands, taking the osmium-platinum alloy as a resource bank, rearranging the subatomic particles to build the item from scratch, atom by atom.”
“Sir! How do you intend to put this new robot into practical use?” One of the eager reporters yelled out.
“I’m so glad you asked! I was just about to get to that part. With the fabrication arm, the robot can create any tool, be it a hack saw, a drill, a plasma welder or even just a simple pen, in a matter of seconds. Imagine a scenario, god forbid, a terrible automobile accident. The robot can be deployed within minutes by air due to its lightweight chassis, and can easily lift a truck to free victims trapped under. It can create tools essential for search and rescue on the spot. And the best part, everything is done autonomously, leaving us humans, free to do more important, and less hazardous things such as delivering medical attention. Naturally, with the inclusion of AI, you will worry about its actual effectiveness in decision making. To this point, I say you have absolutely nothing to worry about since the robot can be controlled wirelessly via voice command, allowing rescue personal to make decisions on behalf of the AI.”
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Having said that, the reporters began bombarding him with even more questions.
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[[Meanwhile, in the loading bay]]
“Is everything ready?”
“Yea, we just have to wait for the prototype to return into the building. The charges have been placed.”
“What about human casualties?”
“Why do you even care? They are selling their tech to the military. Who knows how much is being leaked to third-party armed forces. Look, even we managed to get our hands on one of their prized military techs, what makes you think worse parties haven’t? Killing their people would only serve more good than bad. At least we can hope that their research will be delayed by a few decades.”
“Ok, keep your eyes up. Looks like the presentation is almost over. Everyone ready?”
“Ready”
“Ready”
“Affirmative”
“All ok here. Security is escorting him to his car.”
“The target is in the building, I repeat, the target is in the building.”
“Good. Blow up the charges, trap them within the building. Their implosion tech will take some time to charge up. We can’t let a single one of them escape the building.”
“Blowing in 3. 2. 1.”
*Click*
“BOOOM!!*
Multiple explosions rang out as the building began to crumble partially, blocking all the exits and the roof. Every single person who was just outside the building were stunned, both by the shockwave, and the sonic boom. With ears ringing, glass shattering, and concrete dust blinding everyone, the whole area became a frantic shuffle to find cover for fear that the terrorists would strike once more.
Walter watched in horror as his life’s work came crumbling down in front of him. He was unharmed, but he watched the giant red letter ‘A’ fall down onto the rubble as screams reverberated from within the building. He immediately recognised the bombs. These were shockwave bombs, designed specifically to take down strategic buildings without the mess of fire and explosives. It was one of the designs sold to the military a few years ago.
Quickly getting out of the car, he began dialling for emergency rescue units, while quickly directing people to safety. He did not want to risk his life standing out there. But as much as he wished he could just drive off to safety, he needed to keep the image of a good leader up, hoping it would help him in the near future when dealing with this crisis. Fleeing would only besmirch his good reputation that had taken decades to build up.
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[[Within the collapsed building]]
“Everyone calm down! I’m a doctor. Those not injured, help move the injured to this area! Everybody help to move the equipment away! I will tend to the patients as much as I can. The explosions have stopped for now but we can’t be sure that there won’t be more!” A single doctor yelled out as he began ordering people within the flickering lights.
Under his command, the survivors quickly reorganised themselves, following his orders and prioritising the injured. There, a single robot came stepping over the rubble confidently, carrying an unconscious scientist in its arms. As it laid the man down onto the ground, it turned around once more to face a wall.
“Stop! Just stop! Go find more survivors!” he barked, as the robot turned its head to look at him quizzically, the saw stopping its motion.
Then, everything ended. Within a blink of an eye, the reporters saw the building simply vanish, falling upon itself into a single point, leaving nothing behind. It had imploded on itself, destroying everything within.