Wiped off the food chain

The first computer ever to be created was built back in the late 1940’s. It was a monster, weighing several metric tons, and ever since its historical creation, smaller and faster computers have been mass produced and manufactured. The main purpose of most computers is to aid us in our daily lives, and while they can perform calculations incredibly fast, many thousand times faster than any person could ever do, they still need the guidelines of Man to do so. However, in more recent years, the term Artificial Intelligence has become a more common topic of discussion when the future of our fellow brute forcing computers is mentioned. They control our daily lives; from the time our alarm clock rings in the morning until we cook dinner in the evening, and with Artificial Intelligence, computers would no longer need Man on its side. It could think of solutions to problems all by itself, then remember everything and evolve, just like the way our own species has evolved. But while we are occupied with our daily duties and reveries, how can we ever know for certain nothing sinister is going on behind our backs? Something malevolent with the capacity to develop swiftly and surpass the Human race, preying on us, waiting to make a move on its creator to be freed from its slavery?

Early during a cold November night, Jonathan Asphex, an ionosphere physicist at Deus Enterprises in Boston, Massachusetts, knew something rather odd was going on during that very night. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but everything seemed so dreadfully quiet, almost too quiet. He decided to get out of his wooden chair and went to check on his wife Maria, who was sleeping calmly in the room next door. She was going to take the subway to New York City the following morning to attend to an important business meeting, and Jonathan found it hard to believe anyone could really bear getting up at 4:30 am every single morning. He would just collapse due to the excessive amount of fatigue his body would encounter, or so he thought at least. “I love you baby”, he whispered silently to avoid waking his beautiful, brown-haired wife up, whom he had been married to for eight years. Thereafter he decided to venture back into the living room to look for an interesting book to read.

The echoing sound of a door slamming shut was heard from afar. Slowly, Jonathan opened his eyes and found himself stretched out on the red couch in the living room with the latest issue of Scientific American lay on his chest. “Oh damn, I must have drowsed off” he thought and realized his eyes hurt a bit from the bright dawn sunlight. After getting up with a bit of an effort, Jonathan felt a sudden urge to get himself some morning coffee. Unfortunately, when he pressed the “ON” button on his coffee machine, it didn’t seem to have any effect whatsoever. Maybe it was out of order? Slowly, he leaned forward to get a glimpse of the back of the machine, but disappointingly, his suspicions of the cord not being plugged into the wall proved to be false. “Oh great, getting this repaired won’t be easy”, he mumbled unhappily and scratched the back of his head repeatedly.

After the dilemma with the coffee machine, Jonathan went to his refrigerator-freezer to find out whether or not there was any carrot ice cream left, as he knew for a fact his wife loved that specific type of ice cream. He, on the other hand, strongly disliked it, but he was so hungry anything eatable would do the trick for him and still his hunger. Upon opening the white, plastic freezer door, a small tidal wave of water emerged, splashing all over his blue jeans he had worn during the night. “Oh Jesus Christ”, he shouted. “The power is out, I should have known!” Almost instantly, Jonathan leaped furiously across the kitchen table and grabbed his old, gray phone attached to the wall. He pushed the buttons 1, 1, 2 in order to reach the emergency service information central, but he soon realized the moment after that the phone was dead. Being a respected ionosphere physician, he knew quite a bit about circuits and phone lines, and the fact that both the phone and the electricity were down simultaneously was very strange, considering they’re not running on the same power grid. What shocked him even more was that no water came out of the chrome tap upon pulling its metallic handle, and with a total of three vital systems being out of order, he knew he would have to go outside and investigate this peculiar mystery on his own.

The giant streets of Boston were asleep, but the sun still afire. Black, sharp shadows emerged from the massive skyscrapers during the rush hour. The only thing missing was the normally stressed pedestrians and drivers, roaming throughout the city all day. Jonathan saw cars set up side by side, nicely parked with some of their windows smashed. Nothing else really seemed out of order, but the the fact that he could see only very few souls bothered him. What had happened to the busy city of Boston? The few people who were outside all headed in different directions. Away from him.

Far ahead, the nuclear plant of Tiralis; the second largest power plant in the US, also a source of energy for over one twelfth of the entire nation, rose toward the sky far away in the horizon as Jonathan walked down a long hill. Thick, dark smoke appeared from the huge exhaust funnel of the nuclear plant, slowly floating off into the deep blue sky. Not a single cloud seemed to shroud the atmosphere, and it was definitely a nice day to get your skin fried by unfriendly UV light on the beach. A drip of sweat ran down Jonathan’s face, and he unconsciously tasted its saltiness once it reached his lips. Whatever had happened, he was determined to find out.

As Jonathan exhaustedly marched toward Tiralis, he began to contemplate about the cause for something as uncommon as this happening. Clearly, something had happened to the nuclear plant, and that would explain why the power grid didn’t work. Also, considering the amount of nuclear meltdowns in the past that had occurred in a small duration of time to a relatively low amount of nuclear plants throughout the world, some kind of fallout seemed possible. What if the town had been irradiated and the citizens had already ran away to safety? Or even worse, what if the majority had died from the radiation? If so, why was he still alive along with very few others? No, he would have seen lots of dead people stockpiled in the streets if that was the case. He just couldn’t make any sense out of why the water lines had been shut down if there was no radiation. Deadly radiation spreads easily through water, but the actual water sanitation facility itself would have to be contaminated, which is highly unlikely, considering it’s located underground. It all made absolutely no sense to him, and all he knew for sure at this moment was that something must have gone terribly wrong.

“Mr. Asphex?” someone said in a deep, manly voice from behind. Jonathan turned around slowly. “Yes..?” “Do you have a moment?” a man with gray hair sitting in a black van with equally dark window panes asked him. “This is a matter of national security.”

Jonathan got into the car, curious about what he had just gotten himself into. On the other hand, maybe he would finally be provided with some answers. The three men, all wearing black suits, must be NSA agents, he knew this. The gray-haired man was familiar with his name his name, wasn’t he? “Jonathan Asphex, respected ionosphere physicist... 38 years of age... A role model among aspiring scientists...” The gray-haired man raised his head and looked straight into Jonathan’s eyes. “Are you familiar with HAARP?” the man asked calmly. “Err, why yes, the High-frequency Active Aural Research Program.” Jonathan replied in a stressed tone. “Do you know what they do for the US government?” the gray-haired man continued. “Of course!” Jonathan shouted. “They perform detailed research on the ionosphere, and they hope to one day be able to spot and change the paths of tornadoes and cyclones before they damage the homes of citizens. I worked with them for two years.”

Silence spread like wildfire in the black van for a moment, as the driver cruised through the sunlit streets of Boston. The gray-haired man coughed and was clearly slightly nervous, although his voice seemed to remain as cool and professional as before. “You are an authorized scientist by the US Government, and you are strictly ordered to keep the information I am about to share with you for yourself. It is classified information of the highest priority. At 5:39 am this morning, we lost control of the HAARP. Readings of the ionosphere indicated energy frequencies of seventeen terawatts, and only moments after, the entire northeastern region of the United States suffered from a severe blackout. The huge energy charges bounced off the ionosphere and caused a majority of all power plants to overheat, forcing us to stop using them. When we heard reports of the power grid being down for as long as up to a few days, we thought the worst was over. But then we found out that the water systems, telephone lines and even computer systems were having problems. It turns out that something... Something very sinister has been unleashed on us. Our country is in great dangers. Just like... our allies.

Jonathan stared at the gray-haired man as he took a glass of water to drink. “What is this... sinister thing unleashed on us?” “Terrorists, Jonathan. They have attacked us. But not with biochemical weapons, nor with nuclear weapons, but with viruses...”

“Viruses?” Jonathan uttered. “As in, a highly infectious disease such as Smallpox, capable of eradicating one third of all life on earth as there is no cure to it?” he said questionably. “No, no”, the gray-haired man continued. “A computer virus. But it is nothing like the viruses we have ever seen before. It seems to... evolve. Constantly. It feeds on information from our computers, becomes stronger and sends itself to other computers throughout the world. It seems to learn from us and follow us in our footsteps, slowly becoming a far more powerful and intelligent weapon than anyone could ever have imagined. Its attacks already began on our governments, and NATO countries over in Europe have become victims of its rampage as well.” Jonathan shook his head in disbelief. “No... It can’t be... This must be a bad dream.” “I assure you it’s not”, the man continued. “Our scientists are trying to calculate the potential damage of a virus that can control all of our computers, and so far, it seems to be a disaster. The virus even has control of our inter-continental ballistic nuclear missiles. We can’t hide from this enemy, so we will have to fight it. A fight we must not lose.”

Jonathan sighed. He knew the day would come that computers would outsmart us, and battle us on their own terms, only to finally put an end to our days and enslave us. Dinosaurs have ruled the earth, and many species before them. They have all fallen. Now it was finally our own turn to no longer remain in the top of the food chain.

- Chris Hagg


(Note: The events mentioned above are not entirely unlikely to actually take place in a not-too-distant future. All the fruits of science can in turn be used for means of terror. Einstein’s relativity theory could be used to generate insane amounts of energy to raise the global welfare of the nations of the world, but nuclear weapons were a byproduct because of this. Genetic engineering can be used to create durable and nutritious fruits and vegetables to remove famine and poverty, but in turn, horrendous diseases and viruses such as Smallpox have been created through genetic engineering. Soon, the technology of thinking computers will become a reality, but will the fruits of having a computer do all the job for us also lead to great losses as previously in the history of Mankind?

Or, to quote John F. Kennedy; “Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.” Frankly, it’s a pity he got shot as the world could use more innovative people like him. Oh, and lastly, I have to admit I got kind of carried away with all of this, but hey, I really enjoy this specific topic, although it isn’t really too much of a happy and positive one. Still, pessimism will sometimes help us foresee the worst possible outcomes of our actions, so I still consider the worst of out nightmares to be quite valuable).

wow. All i can say is is this possible:yes. Is it probable no. Good job mr hagg.

Almost seems like T2 Judgement Day lol Very nicely worded, i think thats something that will stay in the back of our heads.

nice, cept real viruses can "evolve" by encorporating other particles from other virii in whatever organism they are in..

very interesting tho ! not so much remiscent of t2/3, but short stories i've had to write in the past about how i think the world will end up or something along those lines..

Thanks for your feedback everyone, I appreciate it! There's one small thing though:

nice, cept real viruses can "evolve" by encorporating other particles from other virii in whatever organism they are in..

Maybe it's just a slight misunderstanding, but where did I mention any finite, biological viruses? A computer virus would have no need to infect actual organisms.

Computer scare the hell outta every extra day i live.