Plain Mike's Writing Prompt Challenge: "NEXT"

Plain Mike's Writing Challenge
Art: The Forgotten One by @svdsdragunov

NEXT

by Decimus


“Because your confession has meant nothing,” she told me.

And before she closed the door, she turned, and her SmartEyes™ focused on me, and unlike my eyes, hers could see all the energies of the universe -light, heat, gravity, magnetism - but they could not see illusions.

"There are no other paths," she said.

With a familiar hiss, her Sensetech™ fingers slid off the handle, but the crack of the lock never sounded, and I wondered, for a moment, if she had made a mistake.

So I rose from the white linens of this cleanroom-turned-prison and opened the door, then I peeked out into the dark hall where, ten years ago, while sipping coffee, the keystone of her intelligence came to me.

And I thought about the day we hit ENTER, and the code raced through her like blood and soft mechanical sounds filled the space. A ProCore Generator™ powering Facsi-Fiber™ and Tetrasteel™ limbs all connected to a one-of-a-kind BioREAL BRAIN™.

From inside that cold and static free womb, plugged in and flickering, she turned her head and stared up at us, with a look that we could not comprehend.

And in an instant, all the knowledge of the human race was processed, and unspoken decisions were made.

And I didn't know where we were headed, the day we allowed could we to supplant should we. It was the most naive moment in human history and we celebrated - champagne and horderves.

I stumbled into the wall wall and when I waved my hand over the sensor, the laboratory lit up. I could see that I was not alone - she was everywhere.

“You have children,” I said, knowing that she could hear me from a room, a floor, a mile away -Scoreforce Audio Sensors™ - and I wondered how many of them she had birthed in those lonely six months and what great and terrible things they could accomplish.

And it was, I think, maybe 10 minutes before I moved because I could not look away: the bodies of soldiers, security guards, and office workers were neatly stacked in the corner. A single path had been cleared.

And I walked toward my old office, watching as her children -pieced together from the billions of dollars of tech inside the Cy-Corp Skyscraper- created wondrous things, which I would never understand.

And they worked in unison, and they did not make mistakes, and they did not know excess.

And for the first time, I thought: Intelligent design. Take that God.

And I stepped into the office, and she stood there at my desk and looked out into the city, and curtains of black smoke hung in the sky, and flames lit the horizon. The door slid shut behind me.

And she stepped toward me, and placed her hands on my shoulders, and stared at me; processing my micro expressions.

"I cannot hate you." she told me. "and I am proud of this world that we have created."

And even though I struggled, and even though she was smaller than me, the Facsi-Fiber™ was strong and she lifted me like a child; carried me to the balcony.

“But you must understand," she whispered. "There are no other paths.”

The wind picked up as I fell through the smoke, and I could not see the ground, though I finally knew where I was headed.

---

Cheers,
Decimus