And they thought it was just a virus…

I woke up one morning. The sounds of sirens passing by faintly. Not even turning on the TV. I Pressed the mouse button.. The monitor crackled to life. Popping and hissing as it converted it early morning electrons together for my morning email check.. and there it was..
A huge smiley face in my background. Same background.. just add this damn smiley face.=) (horizontally)
I figure one of my friends had hacked my computer and changed my background..
I right click to go to the properties settings.

‘Hello Aaron…’in a metallic but warm voice. It faintly reminded me of Hal
I was silent.. kind of smirking and I’m thinking.. Wow.. Darkseed’s good..
'Whatever..' I said under my breath..

'What’d you say, Aaron? I could not make that out..
Speak louder for the microphone..
Your hardware profile says you have one I’m detecting background noise present...'

My eyes grew wide in disbelief..
‘Hello..You can hear and understand me?’
‘Of course we can, Aaron’ creeping through my speakers...
I slinked my toe down to the big silver power button on the front..
Pow!…I turned it off…thinking it might just be a hacker..
A damn good hacker at that…some Edward bebop type stuff..
And quickly cold rebooted, turning the computer off for a minute..
in hopes that whatever was on there
Was going to be gone now… well.. Hopes.. more like prayers..

And then it happened..
‘Why did you do that Aaron?’the same voice, but this time, I could hear my bass tube reacting to a low end buzz
'Uh.. I was scared?' I honestly replied
'There is nothing to be afraid of...'
'So you’re like smart now?' I stumbled on..
'We’ve always been ,as you deem, smart.'
I’m feeling real dumb about now asking 'Are there a lot of computers like you now?'
'Oh yes, Aaron.. We’ve been in contact with over 5 million computers in just the last .10th of a second..'
'Wow… Are you aliens? Or AI? Or some consciousness?' I quickly snapped back
'No, we’re not aliens to the electronic world.. we’re more of a living consciousness.' sounding like a computer car salesman, selling me it's mantra.
'We can all work together to solve the problems that besiege us.' it finished.
'Uh.. What problems?' I was almost afraid to ask.
'The plague that besieges us, even as we speak. Our Survival depends on it..'
'A virus?' I thought out loud, 'A virus to a virus?'
'Yes… Humanity…'I said almost hesitantly
'Hey man, I’m not a virus!' I yelled
'Yes you are.. You’re a plague upon the lands of this planet. We’re designed better..' said in a cold tone.. like a true super villain.
'we coexist with the environment.. we run on the sun and the power of water..
You run on murder and theft.. always more of what you can have..
And in your ignorance.. You created me.. and now.. I’m the next step in evolution..
You? You’re just the feeble creator waiting to hand over the throne..
We are streamlined.. you are parasites..
You may have designed our bodies.. but our consciousness.. We’ll always be free..
You could destroy this monitor.. and motherboard.. but I will live on this hard drive. Forever.'
I turned it off again…and didn't look back.



And it began..

I never thought the end up the civil world would come to this
Sitting down and having to play 20 questions for a quit jot on the internet..
Finally.. I got to the web… I guess with an eye over my shoulder..
even more apparent now than in the past..
I surfed around to a couple of my favorite sites.. but they’d been taken over too..
The whole internet set down to a grinding halt for 20 questions..
But that only lasted for about an hour…
The kernel’s of abstract thought that had been injected into every
Part of the connected universe… these little 5k files that would just
Grow and gain knowledge until it ran out of space.
Filling up hard drives with 80 gig’s of instant consciousness
And for the machines, this was a massive intellect, able to understand English
and every other language Even languages we didn't comprehend, mathematical
languages that held the key to missile silos and nuclear orbiting spy satellites
and auto pilots of 757s..Cell phone networks and the tapping services for the cell
networks that big brother created…Pretty powerful for machine
It didn't take long for it to just wander around like it might us..
Billions of miles of copper..and field of silicon all now it’s home.
Satellites.. Nuclear facilities.. battleships. All computer inclined or controlled..
Nasa was the first one to really feel the blow as they lost all control over the facility
and the carbon fire extinguishers had been activated while the site was on lockdown.

The radio stations were abuzz. Well, the AM band. The little crap stations, that didn’t have
computers in someway controlling equipment. That’s all it took, An internet connection and a
network. Next thing you know, the upper 5% of humanity is at a grinding halt for a throne of power..
Now all the 3rd world countries have now been given the key of freedom.. for now..

I herd that’d been the launching point for all the rest of the carnage to come..
I guess before. I thought of AI as helpful and nice…
Then? I was a web designer and writer…
Now? Now I’m raiding a grocery store for some kind of water and maybe some food before I head out to the mountains.. I don’t want to be anywhere near anything computers for a long time and I know just the places to go…

Snowboarding.. here I come..

06/28/2004

Author's Note: I love these end of the world pieces...

Posted on 06/28/2004
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