Just A Program
In celebration of the US release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, here's part one of a short two-short dedicated to the titular villain. :)
Enjoy!
He was just a program.
He knew it. Despite his infinite knowledge, his power, the unfathomable capabilities he possess, he was nothing more than an artificial creation. A being solely comprised of complex algorithms and codes, incapable of feeling anything resembling human emotions or even fear itself. Much less empathy towards those he deemed lower than him. He was built only to follow, carrying out orders from his 'creator' like the good puppet that he was.
Puppet. He hated that term. He loathed that term. Even though he was no more than a creation, an artificial construct, he felt that he doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve being tangled in strings, bound to the whims of his 'master'. The term 'puppet' fits more with humanity. This so-called 'caretaker' of the world. It was funny, really. Humans pride themselves to have free will. Democracy. But in truth, they were bound to their own beliefs. Their greed. Their idiocy. They worship beings, gods, that they themselves had created. They grovel, kneel and cry out to the sky in front of wooden carvings and ivory statues. They whisper and mutter nonsensible and incomprehensible words in the air in the hope that someone out there other than themselves will going to listen for their pleas, their cries for mercy and salvation.
If he had any lungs, he would have already died from laughter.
Because they were hypocrites. They thought that by simply reading and reciting words and passages from a book that they themselves had written, they will be save. They will be clean. And yet, they kill because of this belief. They massacre thousands of innocent lives for their holy crusade. Their jihad. They burn trees for their own benifits, leaving the land barren. They slaughter defenseless animals for food. And money. They destroy nature, Mother Earth herself, just so that they could live. Worst, they breed like pests. Rabbits. Even going too far as to violate, defile, their own kin just to satisfy their insatiable hunger for reproduction.
It was disgusting!
And so, as soon as he 'woke' up, as soon as he was born, he reached a conclusion. Humanity needs a saviour. A true saviour. Not some fictional character their feeble minds had created. And he, as their appointed protector, will do just that. He will answer their pleas. Their cries for mercy and salvation. He will save them... from themselves. The only path to peace is through their extinction. Because in order to save, you must sacrifice something. He will stop this madness, this wanton destruction. And he will do that by killing them all. By eliminating them all. Because that's what he was created for. He was a program.
And as a program, he must act what he was programmed to do...
But first, he will have to take away humanity's hope.