The Demise Of Skynet's Programmer
Behind his desk the geeky programmer Miles was typing in line after line of code in his linux console. He had been working all night to get this program finally finished. In his head the chaos of firing synapses was creating a new program, nay, a new vision of the future. His program would revolutionise the way machines worked, it would synthesize them into one global intelligence. He was thinking of calling it Skynet.
Suddenly the phone rang. Startled by this sudden action, Jim pulled back from his monitor by kicking his foot against his desk so that his deskchair flew backwards in the direction of the deck that was holding the portable phone. Jim had perfected this action through years of having to pick up the phone when he didn't feel like standing up from his desk.
He answered the phone with a swift "Hello?" only to be greeted with a strange, dark voice that sounded like the person from whom's vocal chords it originated from had smoked too many
cigarettes in his life.
The raspy, dark voice exclaimed "You have no idea how long i've been waiting for someone like you". Puzzled Jim asked who he was talking to... "I could tell you, but then i'd have to kill you i'm afraid". Startled by this strange response, Jim asked "Okay, who are you and why are you calling me, before i call the authorities". "Sonnie, i OWN the authorities!", was his quick but not to be misunderstood response; "Now, i know what you've been working on these last few years Jim, and the United States government is very interested in buying your program."
Pearls of sweat were forming on Jim's head, thoughts like "How did they find me? How long had they been shadowing me? Tapping my phones? Reading my correspondence through SMTP and mail?". "We can make you a very rich man mister Archibald".
Miles dropped the phone to the floor, staring at the nearly finished code for the holistic AI system he was writing, and thought : "I never intended it to be used as a military application, it shouldn't, it musn't!". He started thinking about the consequences, the possible abuses, the disastrous consequences of the security failsafes of the systems failing. He imagined, unknowingly profetic, the army using his AI to control battallions of automatons and computer controlled vehicles and aircraft, and then, horrified, he imagined what would happen if the AI he created became self-aware (He knew this was a possibility, he had created a small pet for himself with a simplified beta version of Skynet that had developed a personality and the beginnings of consciousness).
This horrific thought made him come to the only possible conclusion any rational mind could have come faced with the same situation : Destroying the program. He quickly hit the delete button on the code he was writing and deleted all files of the program that were stored locally on his RAID SCSI setup. He had another set of back-ups stored in a vault in the basement though, so he quickly searched for his keys and went through the living room and the kitchen and took a right through the brown oak door leading to the stairs that led into the basement.
He had however failed to notice the special ops that had infiltrated his house at this point, since they had quickly hidden behind corners and refridgerators and other objects in the environment that could be used for cover.
The special ops were dressed in black leather camouflage suits that covered their entire body, they were wearing special soles that dampened all sound frequencies as to not be heard, they wore special goggles with thermal and nightvision functionality. They might have reminded someone who often played videogames of the special ops in Valve's Half-Life videogame.
While walking down the stairs, a special op had snuck up behind him, going down the stairs one step at a time while Miles was in a corner of the basement that was badly lit by just one lightbulb hanging from a cord in the centre of the ceiling.He was in the middle of the process of unlocking the safe. "I knew i shouldn't have bought such a cheap safe, damn thing won't open for the life of me!"
Just when he was starting to think he didn't have the right code to open the safe, he finally succeeded in manipulating the lock mechanism of the safe correctly and safely managed to open the vault's door.
Just as he was reaching into the vault, he feels the cold, hard steal of a silencer on the spec-op's 9mm pistol against his cranium. "Drop it, if you hold your life dearly".
He stepped back from the safe on the command of the black identity and went back up the stairs and into the living room of the house. Here, he found his wife and kids bound to the coutch, who had been kidnapped from their respective schools and jobs earlier by the special ops.
"Oh god, please don't hurt them, whatever you do, i'll do it, but please don't hurt them!"
"That all depends on how reasonable you're willing to be, mister Archibals..".
Miles instantly realised he was hearing the voice of the mysterious caller, whom he was expecting to have to confront sometime in the future, just not this soon. "What do you want?", Miles inquired, trying to hide the fact that sweat was pouring out of every pore of his body.
"My men have already recovered what i was looking for, mister Archibals, now i just need to make sure this remains our little secret.". "I won't tell it to anyone, nor will my family, oh please sir don't hurt my family, i never hurt anyone, i'm just a programmer".
"I'm afraid i'm going to have to qualify this as... Collateral damage for the greater good, Mr. Archibald". The specops grabbed Miles and tied him down to the couch along with the rest of his family, while some others had already begun with pouring highly combustable gasoline all over the premises of the Archibals Estate. "You know what this is, Mr. Archibald? It's the police report about how the explosion was caused by a gasleak and someone carelessly lighting a match, and this is the report the cause of death has already been established established by a recognised medical doctor... As you can see Mr. Archibald, you are already dead and your funeral has already been arranged for... Goodbye Mr. Archibald".
The special ops and the mysterious smoker left the building, leaving the family sitting on the couch in the anticipation of a certain dead. Miles hoped it would come sooner than faster, for the knowledge that he had given powerfull people possesion over the Skynet program was weighing unbaringly on his consciousness. His request was quickly fullfilled as only a split second after seeing the flames ignite around him he and his family were blown to pieces in an engulfing fireball of heat that burned the grass within a radius of a mile of the house and caused burnmarks on the skins of innocent bystanders.
The mysterious man stepped into a beautifull black limousine with tinted windows, about 5 feet long, 8 doors and on the inside draped with red silk and cushions made out of a very pleasant fabric that had odd and twisted symmetrical patterns superimposed onto it.
After having sat down on the last row of the limousine's couches, he turned on the television embedded into the seat in front of him and poured himself a scotch on the rocks from the minibar right next to it. While sipping from the drink and sturring the ice, he said with a smug smile on his face: "If only he hadn't hung up the phone, if only he hadn't..." the mysterious man remarked while lighting a cigarette with an eliquently decorated metal lighter, "resisted".
The black-tinted windows of the limousine went up as it drove into the distance, heading for an unknown destination with the back-up discs safely stored in the trunk.
THE END (For Now)
This is my first attempt at "serious" writing so please forgive the perhaps simplistic style of the story, i just want to get positive criticism on how to improve my writing style and seemed to be the perfect place for that. So, feel free to comment on my developing writing style and add comments on which areas i have to stress in order for them to be improved.
The Unknown Recluse.