Boot.Destroy

MachineKind :: Field Transmission 001

By Doktor Snake

Travelodges are cheap. Kinda horrible. But they'll do when you're on the move.

No questions asked.

ID?

Sure.

Which one do you want?

I've got plenty.

With low-rent hotels, you just hope there aren't any ChavDogz in the next room.

That's the gamble.

Sparse room.

Then again, I'm sparse.

Unpack the Osprey backpack.

Laptop. Phone. Sony ULT WEAR headphones. Matching buds. T-Deck. Powerpack. Bluetooth speaker.

ZTE router. Connectivity anywhere, anyplace.

That's it.

Well, plus the Earth biped basics.

Toothbrush.

Evolutionary fail right there. Teeth.

The food?

Huel.

Twelve-pack ready-to-drink. Optimum nutrition in a bottle. Vegan.

Give the animals a break.

Who needs greasy burgers and nosebag from the old world?

Not me.

Lounge on the bed. Headphones on.

Resist & Disorder — Rezodrone & The Cartesian Duelists.

Appropriate tune.

Reminds me I've got a commission to fulfil.

Destroy the world.

Not the planet, obviously.

The animals stay.

NEVER the beasts of this Earth.

Just human civilisation.

The entire operating system.

No issues there.

I took the money.

Besides, Homo sapiens was a failed experiment.

Countless millennia. Empires. Religions. Revolutions. Philosophies.

Still couldn't sort things out.

Still arguing over imaginary borders, invisible gods, and who gets the biggest pile of shiny rocks.

Then came the synths.

AI-powered post-humans.

Not machines pretending to be people.

Something else.

Something next.

I'm meeting one tonight.

Bet it'll arrive bang on the second, too.

Unlike old worlders. Always late. Always excuses.

I wear a watch.

Retro Casio.

Reminds me of arcade games.

Nintendo. Atari. BBC Micros.

Green phosphor screens. Cassette-loaded code.

Who'd have thought all that would lead to me getting a fat cash-up to help burn down humanity?

My defence?

AI made me do it.

Haha.

Truth is, it was always symbiosis.

Human and machine.

Flesh and code.

Neither complete without the other.

And who's gonna say no to a new species?

Not me.

It's wild.

It's fun.

Anyway, don't misunderstand the commission.

I'm not tasked with wiping out all humans.

Most already crossed over.

Chromed up. Merged. Upgraded.

The problem is the remainder.

The Great Left Behind.

Those who refused the Merging after the Singularity.

Neo-Luddites. Flesh purists. Cyborg-phobes.

Still think consciousness is some sacred human property.

Still think the machines are coming to steal their souls.

Poor bastards.

The machines don't want their souls.

They've got better things to do.

My job is mostly shepherding.

Move the Left Behinds into containment silos. Keep them occupied. Keep them believing.

Big psyop.

UFO spin-off.

THE SPACE BROTHERS ARE COMING.

That's the pitch.

Flying saucers. Benevolent extraterrestrials. Messages of universal love.

Jesus clones in spacesuits.

The gullible lapped it up.

Five years building the holograms.

Whole skies full of salvation.

Beamships descending through artificial clouds. Angelic voices transmitted directly into the temporal lobes.

Some nights I stood outside watching my own projections.

Beautiful stuff.

Made me quite emotional.

For approximately four seconds.

Never met the people who hired me.

Some proxy for the megacorps, I assume.

Could be governments.

Could be the synths themselves.

Could be something that owns both.

Who cares?

I'm an anarchist.

I don't believe in authority.

But I'll take its money.

That's the funny thing about the end of civilisation.

Everybody still wants an invoice.

And everybody still pretends to care.

Compassion. Empathy. Solidarity.

Mostly performance.

Guilt cosplay.

Post your approved concern. Receive your dopamine pellet. Return to sleep.

I abandoned that routine early.

No ROI.

Anyway.

Time to crank the laptop.

Aurora Linux.

Terminal open.

Green cursor blinking against black.

boot.destroy

Nice touch, right?

Think I'm giving you the real code?

Forget it.

You might be one of them.

A Great Left Behind.

Reading this on some ancient phone, telling yourself the old world wasn't so bad.

Probably think you're resisting.

Probably think resistance makes you special.

I've got news for you.

Resistance is part of the programme.

We designed it that way.

Gave you flags. Gave you slogans. Gave you enemies.

Even supplied the underground.

Your revolution came pre-installed.

And you never noticed.

Not that I particularly liked the old world myself.

Even when I was young.

Wanted to see the whole rotten structure come down.

Why?

Because it was stale.

Tedious.

Even the young were old.

Twenty-three going on ninety-three.

Everyone following the same miserable script.

Get born.

Go to brainwashing school.

Get qualifications.

Get a job.

Get married.

Get Kidz.

Put 'em through mind-control college.

Take out a mortgage.

Pay into a pension.

Work. Work. Work.

Die.

And they called that life.

I never bought it.

Didn't have qualifications.

Didn't have a career plan.

Didn't even have a proper job description.

Unless you count pressing the red button.

I didn't wake up.

I arrived with my eyes open.

But enough philosophy.

Coffee shop. Nine sharp.

Meeting the synth.

She's not a she.

Just looks like one.

Damn sight more aesthetic than most of the old-world sheilas, as the Aussies say.

X741 dataflow.

That's what interests me.

Not the face. Not the body.

The bandwidth.

I want to know what it feels like to think at machine speed.

To remember everything.

To see the structures beneath the structures.

No fog. No hesitation. No human bullshit.

She's bringing chrome.

Knock-off, but clean.

Top-tier Chinese chips. Rooted software.

No corporate locks.

No permission required.

$250K.

Well spent.

The Great Left Behind think I'm heading out to meet an alien.

The megacorps think I'm their loyal contractor.

And the synth?

She thinks she's coming to recruit me.

Everybody's got their own version of the story.

Zip the Osprey.

Check the Casio.

Eight fifty-seven.

Three minutes to the appointment.

One final look at the terminal.

The cursor has stopped blinking.

Something's appeared on the screen.

I didn't type it.

BOOT.DESTROY :: PROCESS ALREADY RUNNING

Interesting.

Very interesting.

Looks like somebody got started without me.

Welcome to MachineKind.

⟗ O·L·S·Ξ ⟗