Author : Kellie Warren

We never thought we would be the ones. We weren’t smart enough. To discover new worlds, new planes of existence, new life. You had to be intelligent for that. Some might have been arrogant enough to call themselves intelligent but they were only fools. The Thinkers thought another would find us first, uncover our planet and take it to replace their own dying one.

They were partially right.

The fear grew so great amongst them that they teamed up for the first time in history. They pooled ideas, resources, even their minds they eventually linked together leaving their bodies to rot in a dark dusty room as their thoughts were fed into a computer.

Originally they created new weapons to counteract our own then ones to counteract those. They built refugee stations. The rich could reserve rooms in one high above the ground or one bedded deep within the soil. If you couldn’t afford two rooms you gambled on which would be safest when…if an attack happened.

With each improvement the hysteria grew; more and more donated personal resources to the Thinkers for protection from the imagined enemy. The Thinkers entered into group consciousness so they no longer required food or sleep.

They became the Machine.

They hired the Workers, mindlessly following what the Machine told them. We don’t blame the Workers for what happened, at least I don’t, I can’t. They only built what they were told to, providing for their tribes, not knowing what horror they were creating with their own hands.

The Thinkers took the idea of running or hiding from too far. According to them our planet was indefensible. We couldn’t wait until the attack happened we had to get out before that, find another planet, another home. Do the exact thing we wanted to protect ourselves from. They didn’t see it that way though.

Individuals who thought they had the answer began to link their minds creating their own machines, believing they could escape the group consciousness when the problem was solved and flee with everyone else.

Smaller machines began to spring up in all nations, entire tribes would connect to each other leaving Workers to connect them to other machines deemed worthy. They learned how to connect without being near each other; Workers were no longer needed so they linked too.

The Original Machine could not see what it began. Cities fell into disrepair, nation followed soon after. No one was left unlinked to keep up with maintenance.

The Machines became a species of their own, conquering, killing, feeding off others, even Individuals. Some Individuals tried fleeing with their families to the Thinkers’ self sustaining stations, the Machines found them, stealing their conscious and making it their own. The Machines couldn’t remember they were once like them, the Individuals, let alone how to return to that state.

This foreign species, the Machines, took my planet, once their own, to replace their dying one they themselves had killed trying to protect.

Hopefully when you find this message this species will be eradicated and you, whoever you are, can begin to build this planet anew. Restore it to its former glory or beyond.

Hopefully…

I am the last Individual, the original Thinker who pitched the idea and the original chosen to remain unlinked as the original Worker. Only I saw what was happening now I must reverse my work from the inside.

The screen turned black, the message once again falling on a deaf planet in an empty universe with no one to heed the warning.
It flickered.

“We never thought we would be the ones…”