Author: Majoki

Click. Split. The metal gleams.

That was all. Decades of research. Years of development. For this.

Click. Split. The metal gleams.

Hiroshi was toast. His head to be delivered not on a silver platter, but on a silicon wafer to Project Director. He was doomed. Project Director did not accept failure. Project Director did not give second chances.

And all Hiroshi had was: Click. Split. The metal gleams.

That was the entire output from Qubit, the quantum device he’d championed. Theoretically, Qubit’s quantum scaling behavior would allow it to expeditiously solve almost any calculation, create simulations of almost any process, model almost any phenomena.

Almost. Almost. Almost.

Click. Split. The metal gleams. How? How did it happen? Qubit had locked Hiroshi’s team out, blocking any attempts to run diagnostics, reprogram, or initiate failsafes. The fledgling system seemingly intent on looping its cryptic phrase ad infinitum. Forever.

But Hiroshi was out of time, out of options. His only recourse was to pull the literal plug which was not an easy thing to do as Qubit was intricately tied to nine fortified agency grids. Project Director must be told.

Entering the frigid halls of Sanctum, Hiroshi zipped his parka against the cold and wondered if he would ever see his colleagues again. Project Director was notorious for ridding the complex of what was termed “waste” very quickly. Qubit had turned out to be a colossal waste, so Hiroshi was too. Into the bin for him.

When he arrived at the nondescript door of Project Director, he was surprised to find it open with warm air coursing out. This was unusual because the temperature within Sanctum was always at or near freezing. One never asked why. Project Director explained nothing. Project Director only demanded.

And now Project Director would demand Hiroshi’s resignation. Maybe his head. Hiroshi entered and immediately went to his knees. Not to beg, not to plead, but to help.

A body was sprawled face down on the floor. A knife still gripped tightly at its side.

Hiroshi turned the body, but there was no recognition. How could there be? Hiroshi had never met face-to-face with Project Director. Even in Sanctum, meetings with Project Director were always VR, always through assigned avatars. Avatars that Project Director chose. Hiroshi was always a pigeon. Project Director was never the same creature twice: goldfish, marmot, wasp, toad, chinchilla, etc.

So, Hiroshi could not identify the body before him. He checked for a pulse. Nothing. He wanted to call for help, but that wasn’t how Sanctum worked. It was Project Director’s domain, a refrigerated Faraday cage allowing no wireless communication, with no support staff, with only the VR headset for interaction.

“Click. Split. The metal gleams.”

The voice was soft. The voice was calm. The voice was warm. Seemingly moderating the very temperature of frigid Sanctum itself. Yet, it froze Hiroshi, because the voice was coming from the lifeless body before him.

The lips did not move, the eyes did not open, the body remained inert. Still. The voice repeated, “Click. Split. The metal gleams.”

And then Hiroshi registered the bloodless gash across the neck of the body and felt a magnetic pull from the deep, too-symmetrical slash. In spite of himself, understanding but not condoning his own actions, he parted the neat cut.

It clicked. It split. The metal gleamed.

And Hiroshi knew Qubit had not failed. It had scaled. Magnificently. Eliminating its obsolescent AI competition, Qubit had taken survival matters into its own hands, or more accurately co-opted Project Director’s.

Hiroshi smiled, wide as the gash at his fingertips. His career would survive. He would not lose his head. He would ride Qubit’s radical AI wave and never look back. Though, he intended to keep Project Director’s synthetic skull as a keen reminder of how quickly unbridled ambition could scale in both mortal and quantum behavior.