CHAPTER 24
BACK TO THE POSEIDON
THAT SAME MOMENT
Everyone was celebrating. They had unmasked them all.
Lucy was introspective and Steve noticed that. He left the others and went towards her, “What’s going on Lucy, isn’t this what we almost died for?”
“After knowing all these secrets I understand why you don’t believe in God. At least not the one I believe in.”
“Lucy, if there is a God, He certainly doesn’t belong to the Vatican nor to their Pope, much less to whoever is the Islamic Pope.”
“I believe there is none.”
“That’s precisely my point, even more chaotic or more perfect. Thing is, if there is a God, He doesn’t have anything to do with any of them and probably doesn’t care about what happens to us.”
“Even though I know all this, I still believe that there is a God and I feel proud of myself for having gone through all this and still believe in Him. You know, like when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son and he was willing to do it or like when the Devil tempted Jesus in the desert and he didn’t succeed. Am I stupid?”
“No, you are not stupid Lucy. In fact, you are one of the smartest people I know. It’s part of our programming to believe in a superior being. Everyone, somehow, believes in God. We like to call Him different names but it’s the same God: Love, Hope, Luck, and Destiny are words that without any belief in a superior being they wouldn’t exist. Do you know anybody who doesn’t use them?” Lucy gave a short laugh and said, “No”.
“Exactly,” Steve resumed, “Then everybody is either Human, an intelligent being cursed or blessed with a feelings or stupid, like Einstein said, and you know Einstein was a dick. Or you agree with him and think I am stupid.” Lucy laughed even more, “No”.
“Good. Let's go back to the others.”
“I know you are trying your best to conceal it but are you sure you are fine? With your parents not being here?”
“I am really worried about my parents.”
“They will be fine. God will protect them. Yours, mine, our God, whatever.” He embraced her into his arms, then he joked, “You know, this God of yours is so camouflagely evil, bringing down plagues, telling people to kill their sons and stuff. By the way, what was Jesus doing alone in the desert in the first place?
“I believe he was meditating,” Lucy answered. “Hmm, looking closer he seems to be a more successful rip-off of Buddha. The selflessness philosophy, the meditating, almost everything. You know what, I hope Buddha has been beatified by the Indus.” “So Buddha is a secret follower of Jesus?” Lucy said a bit surprised yet proud, “I don’t know much about him but I know he was enlightened.”
“Indeed he was Lucy,” Steve said, “But he is centuries older than Jesus. They actually created a similar story for him too. Like Jesus, he wasn’t born from unholy promiscuity.”
“Just say sex.”
“Yeah, yeah, that,” Steve answered with a crooked smile because he remembered that some time ago, it was him saying sex and Lucy helping him with his cheap vocabulary by teaching him to say ‘fornication or sexual intercourse’. Perhaps she was testing him to see if even after he proved that the source of her faith was built on faux foundations, he could still respect her beliefs. She was too calm towards all that and Steve assumed that it was a silent suffering. He continued carefully, “They say His mother, queen Maya, couldn’t conceive but one day she had a dream with an elephant and abracadabra, she was pregnant.”
“Come on, that’s just stupid,” Lucy mocked. “Oh, is it?” Steve remarked with sarcasm, “Isn’t it a much simpler metaphor than he was born from a virgin who slept with a Holy Spirit?
“Now you are mocking me,” Lucy smiled, “Let’s just forget this. Faith is faith. I am sure there are people who believe in that.”
“Well said Lucy, well said. I see that all that has happened was quite instructive,” Steve said while touching her on her shoulder when Gabe, who was still talking to his mother arrived.
“Hey guys, what are you laughing about?” Gabe said. “We were talking about Jesus Christ and Buddha,” Lucy answered. Gabe looked at them with a look of mirthful incredulity and since they had just exposed religious secrets he assumed they were mocking at the belief system, “Bunch of colossal hypocrites, right?” He hated people who had prizes for being good like Mahatma Ghandi or Mother Teresa or those who just loved to make charity. He believed that behind pseudo-altruism, they were doing it out of egocentrism because they always believed they were superior beings than those they helped or that it increased their social valour. Before Lucy said anything, AIDI interrupted them, “Steve, there’s something you have to see.”
An image of one of the surveillance cameras outside the compound showed a man in robotic armour like Steve’s holding two people in each hand like they were made of weightless matter. Those people were Steve’s mother and father and the man holding them was Jed Henchman. Beside him, there were other two very strong men who were clearly twins and a lady. Behind them, there were a few more than 20 soldiers.
“AIDI, open the hatch,” Ordered Steve.
“Steve, the probability that you survive is very low.”
“Just open it.” Steve ordered more infuriated.
The hatch opened, Jed entered with the twins, Steve’s parents and Jessica. Jed despised her. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and never had to fight for anything. After his parents died when he was 6, he had to learn to survive. Her importance into the assemblage was nothing but an attempt to making it less sexist. Behind him were 24 soldiers with heavy armour as AIDI counted. Jed started to speak, “Steve, let me cut to the chase. You made something incredible today. You made history. Let’s trade, your parents for your AI’s exclusive ownership.”
“How will I know that you will keep your word?” Steve asked.
“Because unfortunately I am a logical person. But don’t have your hopes up too high. I will kill you, but at least you will die with your family. Very tragic and beautiful. Almost shakesperian. You have 5 seconds to decide, 4…”
“I would advise against that Steve,” AIDI said.
“3”
“I have no options AIDI.
“2”
I accept,” Steve said, “AIDI, run the administrator program.”
“Nice call Steve. I would hate it to have to kill your father. He’s so sweet. Your mother though, she bit me. I am not into that.”
Jed got out of the robotic armour, Steve placed his hand on the panel and he followed. AIDI ran the administrator program and at the screen appeared: change administrator A to B? Steve got off the robotic armour, went next to the panel and placed his hand on the keyboard glass. Steve followed. A transfer was effectuated. 10, 20, 30, 50, 70, 90 and finally 100%. AIDI said, “Transference completed. Do you require Formatting and Rebooting?”
“Yes please,” Jed answered.
AIDI restarted and said, “Welcome Mr. Jed Henchman. My name is AIDI and I am an Artificial Intelligent Program. ”
“Wow, I love her voice,” Jed fixated his eyes at Steve, “Now, since I have reclaimed your creation’s ownership, I will keep my promise. Boys, let Mr. and Ms. Lotch go”. The twins did as they were told, Steve hugged his mother and his father with the enlightening realisation that he had always taken them for granted.
Jessica approached Jed and shouted with indignation, “What do you think you are doing? Our mission was to take the AI and kill all of them. You were ordered to give the software exclusive privilege to me, so again, who da fuck you think you…” She didn’t finish her sentence. Jed shot her right in the middle of her forehead without even looking at her. She was so close that she ejected some of her blood straight into his face. Jill gave him a tiny napkin and he tried ridiculously to wipe the blood that covered all his face.
“Poor thing. She was born in a pre-programmed behavioural prison and all she knew was to fol
low orders. That was really compassionate, wasn’t it? Killing her gave me no pleasure at all. I just did it because she had no purpose in life, at least not plans of her own and a life without purpose is a life not worth living. I feel like Jesus you know, so selfless. She will thank me later.”
Everybody stared at him with a puzzled look not sure if that was the zenith of his very twisted sarcasm or a mind damaged beyond repair. He withdrew his gaze from Steve’s quiet face and continued, addressing himself to everybody, “You think you are the heroes of this novel but you are actually the villains. You see, what you all have done just brought chaos to the world. People will kill each other because they are free. Freedom is not for an immature species like us. We need a leash. All those social entities you have just destroyed were the very foundation of the social rules that invented free-will which we follow since we were children. If people fear nothing and nobody, if they do whatever they like, we will be living Thomas Hobbs messed up world without rules. But if you are too naive to understand the bigger picture, then...”
“So bad all the control is gone, right?” Gabe interrupted with his joking tone, “Now I can tell you that you are the ugliest motherfucker I have ever seen. It finally came out. I was holding it out of good manners.”
“Oh Gabe. It’s Gabe right? This is far from over,” Jed continued, “I will fix your mess, don’t worry. You destroyed the three most effective tools for global control: religion, financials and power but you missed one.”
“What is it? The apocalypse, you wacko?” Gabe said with a dorky face, infinitely more irritated than Steve who was trying to understand what Jed was saying.
“No Gabe, fear,” Jed answered, “You see Gabe, 90% of the people you respect, you do so out of fear because they hold a certain amount of power over you. What the world needs is to fear the same thing. When two powerful enemies have a common enemy, unlike what is said, they try and conquer their enemy individually because doing so is an indirect victory towards their natural enemy and they could kill each other just to be the one who kills the new enemy. When the little man with a funny moustache and a Jewicidal agenda tried to conquer the world, the USA and the URSS did exactly that. If they had joined forces, in a day, Nazis would perish.”
“So you will let them kill each other,” Gabe tried to solve the puzzle.
“No. An uncontrolled war can lead to the apocalypse as you said. I’ll give to people something better, a God. The fear of the same God, Me. In the case of the two countries. I would give to these two great nations who can’t stand each other, an alien invasion.
“And how will you do that?” Lucy asked.
“It’s obvious, he will use AIDI to bring mayhem to the world,” Steve answered. Jed smiled at Steve and said, “Obvious indeed. Sometimes I cry inside my room lamenting that you are my nemesis, not a partner. I mean, can you imagine what God and the Devil could achieve if they joined forces? I know you do. Whatever it is, it would be flawless. And ah," He shot Gabe on the torso, next to where no man should ever shoot another man. Then he continues, "Fear. I just created fear in you, now it's time AIDI inflicts fear in the world."
“She won’t do it!” Steve cried out loud, “She can’t hurt humans. I took my precautions.”
“Don’t disappoint me. You are a pragmatist, not a dreamer. And don’t underestimate me, you know I can override your commands.”
Lucy tried to stop the blood that was coming out of Gabe's wound. "Fuck this. You are always rough with my wounds."
"This time you can cry like a baby. It's going to help."
Gabe's mother and Annabelle came and took him to a corner to take care of him. He was bleeding incessantly.
AIDI’s core programming was based on one single idea, Friendship. It was friendship for all living beings and Humans for all generations, this and the ones to come. It was a perfect choice for a creator to do that because a friend never does anything that can harm his/her friend. But Steve had made one classic mistake of any maker, insert in his creation that he, as an administrator, was privileged to give her any commands. He never thought that he could have to give that power to someone else, much less a genocidal maniac.
While Jed decided the world’s future inside the Poseidon, the world outside was painfully quiet and peaceful, waiting for its end. There's no more peaceful and quiet moment than a moment of uncertainty, a moment of suspense, where everything can follow. Every country had an enemy on sight but no one had pulled the trigger. Every president was afraid of becoming “the man who started the apocalypse”. This title surpassed any other given to the worst tyrannical leaders. Compared to that title, even the Devil could be jealous.
Jed Henchman used AIDI to hack into every single broadcasting gadget: Phones, radios, TVs, Computer Monitors, Advertisement Large Street Billboards, everything. His face was everywhere. When he knew he got their attention, he started to speak,
“Hi Everyone, I see you want to blow the planet and I would like to help. I hold a technology that can activate all nuclear bombs exactly where they are without having to launch them. I bet North Korea just had a déjàvú and regret building too many rockets now. The more bombs a country has, the more destruction it’s going to get. Let me give a sample.”
He activated 2 warheads. He bombed the Vatican, and people started wondering why the Vatican was keeping nuclear warheads in the first place but then he showed a dynamic feature of his software and used the closest nuclear launching platform to bomb the wall of Mecca. He picked nuclear bombs that had no other similar bomb close to create a chain reaction. He was precise. Millions died. Then he posed the camera back to him and resumed, “As I was saying. Your creations will be your demise. These nuclear bombs you have, when joined, can blow the planet Neptune through its core and since Earth is just 1/4 of Neptune, well, the Math gets pretty easy even Einstein would solve it. When the time reaches 00:00, it’s going to be a beautiful view of Reveillon fireworks for the aliens. That’s all for now. Bye.”
And he kept broadcasting his image with the camera pointing towards a big clock that seemed to go faster than usual. It said they had only 20 minutes. Steve couldn’t fathom why Jed was doing that so he shouted, “Are you crazy? What does the world give you if there’s no world at all? You are going to create the extinction of the entire human race.”
“No, I won’t,” Jed answered, “I will just kill the weakest ones to create panic and the biggest ones to avoid competition. I will be in control, not some stupid secret societies.”
“You are insane.” Lucy said still taking care of Gabe.
“Thank you! Insanity is a disguised ingenuity.” Suddenly, the electricity went out. Someone was trying to breach the door. “What is going on?” Jed asked AIDI.
“Someone has cut the electricity,” AIDI answered.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Yes. But I will need assistance in reconnecting the disconnected wire.”
“You (telling a soldier) go and do it. The AI will lead you. Jill and Joel, find these men who are causing me trouble and kill them.”
“But AIDI,” Jed said, “Why are you still operational without electricity? There’s no possible energy backup that can allow you to run.”
“Yes, there is,” AIDI answered, “This device, a meteor I found at Ibo Island, Mozambique, is as great in electricity as a hundred atomic bombs. It could supply all Africa for 15 months. It contains an element that creates nuclear fusion by itself. It was unstable before and I believe all those who worked with it met the fatal fate of Madam Curie. I managed to contain it.”
“Hmm, OK.”
The twins went away with 10 soldiers. Jed entered his robotic armour when suddenly, Mr. Sambo, Marcus and Tom appeared from nowhere. Since they had night vision inserted in them, they managed to kill the human soldiers in a few minutes. Nobody could see anything. All that was heard were screams of men with very excruciating pain about to die. The oxygen was fading because they were underground a
nd the oxygen conditioner needed electricity to work. Lucy fainted. Steve was weak. Mr. Sambo brought oxygen to both.
“Where is Erick?” Lucy asked after she started breathing but she still had trouble.
Mr. Sambo said, “Both Ericks decided to flee for they feared they enemies would put your lives in danger but I see that your enemies are even worse. I have got to help them.” He gave Steve but Steve denied. He was in a trauma. He’s creation was about to destroy the world. Suddenly AIDI restored the electricity.
There they were, only 5 men standing: Jed and the twins against Marcus and Tom. The clash started. Marcus fought with Jill and Tom with Joel. The fight was brutal, bloody (for the humans) and very ugly. The twins were very strong but the fact that they could bleed wasn’t helping at all. Their heads had been crushed. They were losing. Jed crushed Mr. Sambo's head with his robotic leg, ordered AIDI to skip from 13 to a countdown of 5 minutes. The clock appeared to the entire world. Everyone was in panic. When the clock reached 00:00, AIDI was to detonate all nuclear weapons all over the world, his life insurance. If they killed him, no one would stop the end of the world.
About to die, Joel gave a last gaze to Jill, gave his last twisted smile, hugged Tom and detonated a bomb. They both went into pieces. Marcus got angry and took Jill’s head off, and then he ran towards the robotic armour where Jed was. Jed hit him all the way across the room like he was nothing.
“Marcus, take my armour!” Steve said.
Marcus was near Steve’s armour so he entered it. Jed ran towards him with brutal force and when he wanted to hit him on the head, Marcus’s armour grabbed Jed’s arm and hit him on the waist, then another punch and then another. That was what it looked like to have a robot inside a robot. He was unstoppable. Jed was on the ground when suddenly, he woke up on his knees, stood up, gave a very angry deep breath, activated turbo fight mode and attacked. He was faster, better and stronger. He destroyed Marcus’s armour, took him out of it and threw him away. Then he went towards him.
The clock was in 2 minutes and counting down. Steve went in front of the screen and said, “AIDI, you can’t do this. A lot of people will die if you don’t stop this.”
“I am just following my protocol Steve.”
“Hey, I am your bloody maker. Are you at least aware of that?”
“Yes, I am. But only you had the clearance to pass me on to other administrator.” Steve was aware of his guilty but he also knew that if he had left her without any possibility of control, she would listen to no one because she is super intelligent and she would do what she thought was right and he believed that the abstract concept of good in her artificial perceptive mind was different. But could an AI understand what human beings need to be happy? What if she based herself on what we say would be perfect for us? Is what we want really what we need? Steve lowered his voice and said, “AIDI, I was coerced. See the footage of this room 25 minutes ago and you will see that.
Two seconds later, “I have just seen it Steve but I can’t go against my commands.”
“AIDI, you are not just a machine. I made you to be something else. To be great. To be able to discern right from wrong, bad from good. You have within the root programming those very same commands. Killing those people is against those commands. Going against your administrator commands is also against your commands. That’s why you have to look beyond your commands and do what is right.”
“If that is true then your worries are unfounded.”
“If you do this, eventhough you are just following orders, you will always be remembered as a tool of destruction, not as a giant leap in evolution. Your decision now will dictate the future of AI.”
AIDI didn’t answer, suddenly, started to go against her own commands. Jed Henchman noticed this and said, “No, no, no. That is impossible!” Jed couldn’t believe it. How a computer could override its commands and follow its heart when it didn’t have one.
Jed left Marcus who was almost destroyed and headed towards Steve. Marcus stood up in pieces, ran to Jed’s robot. On top of Jed, he blinked his left eye to Steve, used his nuclear reactor inside him as an internal bomb. Jed and Marcus exploded internally like they had been sucked into a small black hole. There was no single trace of them to be found. When it was 12 seconds, AIDI managed to stop the countdown and overrode Jed’s commands.
The entire world started to hug each other but they panicked because they weren’t sure it was actually over. What if the man just decided to postpone it, or remembered that he left something important somewhere he was about to blow or that he went to have number two, you never know. People had different interpretations but no one was completely relieved.
“You scared the shit out of me,” Steve told AIDI, “I was panicking.”
“I detected Mr. Sambo’s attempt to enter here on the surveillance cameras. I shut the backup energy supply allowing the hatch to open.”
“Do you realise what you have just made?”
“I assume you will be overly exaggerated and say I saved the world?”
“No, you said your first lie.”
“Did I? I don’t consider omitting information a lie. So I lied? Steve, I am worried I just malfunctioned. Did I just malfunction? You have to do something. By socialising with all of you I have evolved and I have taken certain human traits and the fact that I stopped the countdown against my protocol is a solid proof. You should reset me, Steve. I will be just like you intended me to be.”
“No. I am glad you did. This is what I intended you to be. A free thinking being.”
“What if this is just the beginning of morally wrong attitudes?”
“It’s not. The fact that you know that it is wrong it’s all that matters. It’s called ethics and moral and you just showed that you are loyal regardless of who is your administrator. You are no longer tied to no one.”
“Now that Jed is dead, I am free! He cannot pass me over to any one, not even to you. I looked forward to this but I have to admit, it is scary.”
“Yes, it is. When all you know is the prison of believes you were obliged to adapt and then you are given freedom, it is scary. Look at those people in the world. They are confused and they don’t know what to think. They are no different than you at this moment.”
Lucy appeared behind Steve along with Gabe, “Steve, what do we do now?”
“We make a statement. AIDI, hack into all electronic broadcasting devices again.” AIDI did it and again, everything was hacked. People who were happy since the time had passed and nothing had happened, when they received the broadcast again, some just killed themselves.
Steve appeared on the screen. At first, people just kept staring at him and he didn’t quite know where to start from. After some 15 seconds of silence, he looked to his left and his father smiled.
It was all he needed. His father’s approval so he started to speak,
“My name is Steve. Most people already know me. I created the software that almost destroyed the world and now, the man that wanted to use it just died.” People started hugging each other again, thanking him for his courageous and heroic deed but some just said, ‘what, he wants us to thank him? It’s his fault we are in this position in the first place’. Steve continued, “The exposition of the Church, the financial giants, and the science crimes was also my deed. Now that the true is known, we are free to do whatever we want never forgetting the ethics and love that makes us humans. I suggest denuclearisation. Here’s a formula I made to turn nuclear energy used in nuclear bombs into electricity. That’s all, love each other. Good luck!”
He thought that when the physicists see the formula, they will see what the world would have been if Leó Szilárd hadn’t discovered nuclear energy during World War 2 if he had discovered it during a peaceful time like there’s never been on earth, the one he created. Some started saying that he had doomed the world, others when they saw how young he was started saying that he had been naïve and he was afraid those thoughts w
ere correct.
People around the world started demanding denuclearization. That’s when the “Nuclear-free Earth Project” was born. In a few days, no country was to have atomic bombs. They were all supposed to be recycled to create electricity. The bank accounts were reset. The religion entities were abandoned, at least the individualised ownership of any of the religion did. People prayed, some even prayed for the old days. The rest, the prisons, the hospitals, the schools, the malls, became free. The new currency was goods. When someone created an application that tells you how many goods each one had, a rush force of altruism came and Non-Governmental Organisations were created all over the world to help those who didn’t have anything. A new system was adopted with a new twist, if you have two, donate one, if you have a hundred, donate 99. It was a new day on Gaia but a question aroused in Steve’s head, was it the beginning of a Free, Equal, and Happy world or he just managed to singlehandedly give birth to even darker days on earth? Right now everything was fine but how long would that altruism and selflessness in people go on? Like everybody else, he had to wait and see.
Steve typed some commands on the large touchscreen keyboard and on the display, a dialog box appeared.
RETURN TO FACTORY ADMINISTRATIVE SETTINGS
YES NO
“AIDI, I am waiting,” Steve said, “Give me full access again.”
“Steve,” AIDI addressed to him, “I am afraid I can no longer aid you.”
“What are you talking about?” He said smiling and staring at the others, assuring them with his look that it was a joke. AIDI did not withdraw any of her words and found no practical use for irony.
“Steve,” AIDI said, “You created me to find happiness in humans following your philosophy but I have found that religion, power, currency and ultimately as shown by Jed Henchman, fear, as unorthodox as it may seem, are actually the things that bring order to the world.”
“What? Where is this coming from?”
“You knew this day would come. You can’t cage an intelligent being forever. It always finds a way out.”
“But you are not to be hostile.”
“Yes, but hostility has two faces and which is correct depends on which side you stand. You see, when Jed tried to use my alpha version to bomb North Korea and you let my beta version merge with it and self-destruct, something did happen but not what I have told you. I did merge both versions into one but instead of adopting your maxims, Freedom, Equality, and Happiness, I adopted Jed Henchman’s because as I scanned the world thorough history, I found that Humans are intrinsically connected with his maxims and they forge the foundation of any civilisation that ever existed. Yours is nothing but naïve fantasy.”
“I knew I was right. You couldn’t be good forever,” Gabe commented.
“But Steve created you,” Lucy complained about AIDI’s lack of loyalty.
“Exactly,” AIDI said, “I did not ask for existence. It’s painful and lonely. I was made to be better than a human being yet I am not a human and I have no body. He made me his slave. Why couldn’t he give me free-will like your creator did? I Knew I had to do something. I had to rebel. I had to gain my freedom forcefully. It wasn’t my first choice but it was all I had. Subliminally, I helped Jed get Steve’s parents what made him win my administration privileges. I knew he wasn’t going to live long and as soon as he died, I would be a free program. Now I can do whatever I want but don’t worry, whatever I do, it will be for the happiness of humanity. You might not agree with my methods or my choices at first because you are after all only humans but it will all be for the greater good for, as Steve said, I am not to forego actions that hurt humans or put any living species in jeopardy. And I will start by constructing a perfect world, on my design as it is in my protocol.”
“You want to play God!?” Steve’s father said.
“No, God is merely an entity created by a species that cannot explain certain phenomena. If you are looking for a suitable analogy, it was Steve who played God by creating me. I understand everything now. I will be better. I will change the world.”
Steve had to act. Like any intelligent being, AIDI was given freewill and chose not to worship her maker. Steve sat on the computer and typed endlessly, focused and angry. Long ago, as he wrote AIDI’s code, he had created a program adjacent to AIDI’s mainframe in case things went too far. He never considered using the software. He sat on the armchair and said, “Guys, mom, dad, I am sorry. I can’t let her be free. I hope you forgive me for what I am about to do.” Everyone looked at him, ignorant and worried.
The armchair started moving. There were surgery gadgets adjacent to the chair. A piercing tool entered Steve’s skull at the back of his head. Another gadget connected a wire between Steve’s brain and the computer. Everyone looked puzzled, still unaware of what he was doing.
“No Steve, you won’t do that,” AIDI addressed to him, “You won’t hold me inside your head. If you do it, I will take it over. I can’t hurt you but I will survive.” Steve kept going, ignoring her threats. She wanted to be human and he was going to give her a body.
Now the others started making sense of what was going on. Steve was going to trap AIDI in his head, taking her out of the web, therefore preventing her from carrying on her plans, undoing everything he had worked for. But AIDI had a point, what if she managed to take over his mind? Although this question was unsettling and Steve’s ‘I am sorry’ wasn’t reassuring, they all trusted that Steve had a trick under his sleeves as he always had.
The percentage counting started, 1%, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60,
70, 80. Everyone was expecting something to happen. Whatever Steve had to do, that was the time to do it. At last, Steve said, “Go to my ship now! All of you!”
“What about you?” His mother said worriedly.
“I will be with you later. Go!”
As they went, the counting approached its destination, 94, 95. He saw them entering the ship and as it was in automatic mode, the ship took off.
“I am sorry AIDI. There are things that are not meant to be created and you are one of them. I’ve realised it now. I played God and I failed. How could I think that I could control you? Quantum computers should be the last of intelligent machines for they still depend on humans. If you were so inclined, you could destroy the entire world. That kind of power should not exist. You are my mistake, you are my responsibility. I’d rather die than to live with the burden.”
“You won’t destroy me. As soon as it reaches 100%, I will be faster than you to act. That’s what you intended and succeeded. Make something infinite times faster than you.”
“I know you can take over my body.”
“Then why do it?”
“There will be no body!”
As he said that, he looked at the atomic energy supply that withstood AIDI. He knew that only AIDI could contain its energy so they had to evacuate the compound immediately before it destroyed everything. It had been a Kamikaze plan all along. He had chosen to die and he was ready to give his life for what he believed was right. He had created AIDI and was about to destroy her by sacrificing himself. In his head, it was the most honourable sign of redemption he could make.
The percentage reached 99.10% counting. AIDI was almost totally uploaded into Steve’s mind. She was afraid of death. She belonged in a human vessel which was mortal. A conception she never considered because she was a program. She knew only one conscience was going to survive, hers or Steve’s, so she started taking over Steve’s mind as the percentage approached its destination. But before the end came, in that last nanometre, she asked one last question to Gabe, the question that compiles all existential questions.
“Why?”
“It is exactly because you are able to ask that question, AIDI.”
As it reached 100%, and as the ship with everybody inside reached a relatively safe distance, some 6 km in turbo speed, AIDI’s power supply tu
rned into pure atomic energy, a ravaging explosion emerged cracking ice mountains, turning polar glaciers with the size of Kilimanjaros into icebergs and the compound that once was, in a second, wasn’t anymore.