Author's note: Please forgive the rather dark tone of this story. Keep in mind, this is only the prologue, and is merely intended to lay down the basic idea for the story. Review if you like. If not I will just send a horny ostrich to rape you in your sleep...okay, not really.
Prologue: This is the Way the World Ends
The sun.
I remember the Creator telling me his stories from the world of the users. Sometimes he'd talk for hours on end about what were, to me, the most insignificant things, but to him they were something…more. It's impossible to explain, really. I had always harbored an allure with what existed beyond the confines of the Grid, and I liked nothing more than to hear Flynn's tales of the "real world", as he called it. Yet of all the memories he shared with me, the ones that interested me most, were the ones he recounted of standing on the beach with his wife, gazing over the horizon at the reddish-orange bands spanning the sky, cast by the slowly rising sun.
I had never been the most imaginative of the ISO's. In fact, as far as I can recall, I was one of the least, though in some ways my creative abilities still exceeded those of most users. Nevertheless, picturing how a sunrise appeared never seemed to be within my capabilities. I could view mental depictions of vehicles, locations, and even advanced combat strategies while in the deepest moments of a regeneration cycle, and yet I couldn't possibly being to fathom how a giant disk ascending into a vibrant blue sky might appear.
The first time I ever saw a sunrise felt akin to being a blind woman seeing for the first time. It was exactly as Sam had once described it: warm, radiant. Beautiful.
That was two years ago.
When I left the Grid, I was sure that it was a new beginning. For the first time since the Purge, I was free. I could do what I pleased, without threat of deresolution if I were caught. Riding on his motorcycle felt like gliding swiftly over an entirely new world which had only just been discovered. It was magical. I thought to myself, things will never be the same. It's only now that I wish I hadn't been right.
Things weren't like before. As if it were possible, they only got worse. Sure, there was a period, however succinct, when life couldn't have been better. I was in the place I'd dreamt of for hundreds upon hundreds of cycles. I was experiencing a way of living that I hadn't even considered possible before. I had been reborn…
…But the rest of the world hadn't. In many ways, things were just like they were on the Grid. Its inhabitants were rude, selfish, some of them even dangerous. They acted irrationally, motivated solely by their own greed and corruption. They were unpredictable, hypocritical, cynical, intolerant…and that's only the beginning. Within a mere three or four days of arriving in my new home, I witnessed some of the worst that humanity had to offer; acts, so sinister, that its transgressors made C.L.U. look as peaceful and caring as a Buddhist monk.
It was pure chance which led to my discovery of the horrible things which humanity has done. After leaving the Grid, Sam told me I should learn more about history, and showed me how to use the internet to perform my research. It wasn't long before I stumbled upon a site containing an encyclopedic account of human history. Initially, what I read had me utterly enthralled. I learned about the history of the ancient Greeks and Romans. I read about the Egyptians, the early Chinese, and the Persians. Old world history was fascinating to me on a level unmatched by anything previous. But as I progressed through the plethora of information, I began to notice an increasing number of mentions of warring between peoples. Much of it seemed to be regarding natural resources, politics, even religion. I was dumbstruck by just how foolish people could be.
It only went downhill from there.
By the time I reached 16th century history, I had developed a deep-enough comprehension of human nature to anticipate the results that certain events would be revealed to have. I read about the beginning of European expansion into the American continents, which I knew could only lead to conflict with the natives who populated the region. The Europeans were greedy, and guided by an unquenchable thirst for gold, spices, territory, and people whom they could subjugate and impose their ways upon. I saw no reason to doubt this trait, or to assume that they would eventually move beyond it, as they had done this to themselves for millennia before.
Wherever they went, whatever shores they touched, were left in ruins. In their wake, they left trails of destruction, disease, and suffering. And astonishingly enough, when there were no more of the American natives with which to make war, they again turned on one another. As time passed, things only descended further into brutal conflict. As technologies evolved and improved, so did the skirmishing. By the 20th century, wars which would previously had taken generations to unfold and killed only thousands were now capable of killing millions and could be waged in less than a decade. Governments were constantly searching for the next big gun, the best way to build a bomb, the most effective ammunition for destroying armored vehicles. Whenever one side would invent a superior weapon, the other would just build something even better. There was no end to it. I read about the holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Cold War, the Vietnam War, the invasion of the Middle East. It was all so horrifying. There were times when I broke down into tears at the thought of people being so willing to end millions of innocent lives just because their governments were at odds.
Humans were too short-sighted and ignorant to accept that if nothing were done, they would most assuredly annihilate themselves long before anything natural would. They valued their opinions and lifestyles above all else. They had shown no regard for life, or for their environment, or anything else for that matter. All they cared about was maximizing profit while minimizing personal expense.
It was devastating. For all those cycles, Flynn told me only of the prosperity and camaraderie in the world. He spoke only of compassion and understanding, never of violence or obliteration. But I remember the night when Sam came home to find me, huddling in a darkened room crying to myself and slowly rocking back and forth. I'll never forget what he told me.
"There's a lot that's wrong with the world. We've done a lot of bad things, things that we can never set right…but all we can do is move on."
Though I understand he was only trying to help, his words were of no consolation. When C.L.U. began his genocide on the ISOs, I thought that I would never see anything come close to the evil he committed. But I was wrong. It may sound wrong, but I think now that I can see why he was so adamant about "perfecting" the world. It took me months to realize, but I came to the conclusion that, perhaps, C.L.U. wasn't just trying to open the door to the real world just so he could conquer it. Maybe he was afraid of something. Maybe it was the fact that human kind never stopped expanding. He was afraid of the barbarism that, given the time for the digital world to be rediscovered, would even lead to the Grid being left in ruins. Maybe he didn't just want to conquer the world. Maybe he wanted to save it. Save it from itself. Not that I agree with his methodologies or his ideals, but I think that perhaps even he saw that humanity could never survive the way it was. It needed order. It needed a leader.
It needed to be saved.