Artificial Intelligence

by altoinkblots

The year is 3503, and the world lives in quiet complacency. That is, until the project MKULTRA has its AI system destroyed, children are kidnapped, and two gangs run by kids have to save their hometown of Hawkins, Indiana. This is set in a futuristic AU, with almost no elements of the supernatural. This follows the main plots of seasons 1 and 2 of Stranger Things. Enjoy!

1. Prolouge

Prolouge

November 4, 3503

A night guard walked through empty white halls, lazily eyeing the white tiled floor. Lights flickered above him as he takes a long sip from a metal flask. He smacked his lips, his eye twitchimg. "Don't even know why I'm working this damn job," he mumbled. "Creepy as hell." The lights flicker again, but the guard takes no notice.

Far off in the distance, he heard faint screaming. He checks his watch. The digital face reads 21:43. A little behind schedule, aren't we? he thought to himself. No matter. He was a simple night guard, walking through the halls of the weirdest facility on the planet (why research AI units? They've been around for centuries) with creepy kids looking straight at him through one-way glass. Maybe that's why he drunk so much.

The screaming abruptly stopped, but the guard ignored it, choosing instead to drink some more from his hip flask. The lights started to flicker violently. The guard stood there with the cold metal pressed against his bottom lip, looking up at the fluorescent lights above him. The lab was completely silent, so why could he hear faint static all around him?

He put the flask away, un-hooking the shooter from his belt. The air smelled like static, and he had an uneasy feeling that he was being watched.

The lights kept getting brighter and brighter, and the blackness in between the flickers kept getting shorter and shorter.

"If you think this is funny, it's not!" he called out to the brightly lit hallway. Windows of the one-way glass stretched all the way down the hallway.

Funny.

The guard spun around, pointing his shooter into the distance. "Who are you? Show yourself!"

Show... Yourself...

The guard cursed. That damn static filled his ears. making it nigh impossible to hear anything.

I think..."Where are you!" he bellowed.

I think...The lights kept getting brighter and brighter by the second. The guard could have sword he heard the pattering of little feet, but that was probably his imagination.

I think that you should... you should...The guard kept spinning around and around, pointing his shooter at everything. One of the cameras slowly moved to look straight at him. Soon all of the other cameras had done the same. All of a sudden, the static stopped.

Run.The guard dropped his shooter and ran towards the exit, the lights flickering more violently than before.

He never made it to the elevator.