November 5, 2064
John was riding in his automated vehicle down Interstate Route 79 from Fairmont to the West Virginia University in Morgantown. He sat back in the seat while watching a news broadcast that had been playing for the past two days, making regular news broadcasts sporatic. It involved Aaron Herres, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs of the United States of America talking about Operation: Enduring Victory.
"The Chariot Line Model is formidible and will require every abled body man and woman to fight with railguns so that we can buy time for our scientists to create Project: Zero Dawn, a super weapon that will end the robots before they can do more damage."
It had all started back on Halloween when there was a news report about a bunch of Chariot Line Models, war robots created by Faro Automated Solutions, over in Indonesia. They were machines that behaved like bacteria in that they could consume biomass to suppliment their fuel and were able to replicate. They had gone rogue and started consuming vast amounts of vegetation and graduated to attacking animals and people, and that they were making more of themselves rapidly. As time went on, the situation grew increasingly worse and there was much discussion on what was going to be done to stop the robots as they showed no sign of stopping. Then came this Operation: Enduring Victory and Project: Zero Dawn.
The screen and his focus suddenly went dead, causing John to sit up. He noticed that his AV began slowing down, then turned onto a dirt road; his destination not lying in the direction it was taking.
"What the hell?!"
With his focus down he could not access his vehicle, meaning that it must be a hack. But the encryption software in these vehicles was supposed to be nearly unhackable; so it had to be the result of powerful technology unavailable to the public.
His AV continued driving further down the dirt road and turned off into another dirt road into a more secluded area. A small heliplane came into view through a clearing with its end facing him with an entry ramp now down. Outside it were a group of people who looked to be military, judging by their uniforms. His AV stopped near those people and they quickly encircle the AV. The doors suddenly opened by themselves and a man, their commander no doubt, stepped forward and knelt to address John through the doorway.
"John Aaron Casey Xavier Smith?"
"Y-Yeah, but wha-"
"Sir, you're going to have to come with us." The man's tone was matter-of-fact, yet commanding.
John froze up as his heart skipped a beat and began beating harder. He glanced around at the men, and women, who stood around his automated vehicle.
"Sir," the man stated more forcely. "Please vacate the vehicle of your own volition or we will be forced to take matters into our own hands."
"Okay, okay! I'm coming!" John stated quickly as he struggled to retain his composure while forcing his body into motion and managed to get out.
The commander clasped ahold of his shoulders and turned John around to face his vehicle, forcing John to place his hands upon the hood. The commander frisked him. John's heart pounded away as he tried to calm his breathing.
"I'm sorry sir but this will have to be confiscated," the commander stated as he casually plucked John's focus off the side of his head.
John gasped and flinched as his arms were next forced behind his back. A pair of plastic ziplocks were fastened around his wrists to keep them together. A cloth bag was pulled over his head.
"Start walking," the commander said as John felt a pair of hands firmly grab hold of his arms on either side and turned turn him around, then pushed him along, his feet barely keeping up with his captors. He soon felt the ramp beneath his feet as he heard his feet clumping over them.
He was firmly turned around and shoved down, then felt the seat and hull of the plane against him. He was belted in. The ramp was next heard closing and he felt the heliplane take off. He wondered just who was kidnapping him and why.
"Why did they do all that to you?" Aloy asked.
"Because they were desperate," John answered. "And secrecy was of the utmost importance. They didn't want to risk that I might somehow contact the outside world and tell others where we were at, thus creating moral outrage in the citizenry. Now to continue . . ."
The minutes felt like hours to John. He had been wanting to demand was what going on, but knew that he was not going to get any answers, so he had simply sat there in silence.
"We have arrived at our destination," a woman's voice came over a public announcement system. "Prepare for landing."
John felt the heliplane slow and turn, then the downward motion of it landing in a vertical fashion. Next, came the sudden jolt of having touched down on the tarmac and the engines going quiet. There was a moment of tension and the sound of the ramp lowering, causing the noise of the outside to enter.
"Okay, Mr. Smith," their commander said from alongside him while the sound of unbuckling seatbelts were heard. John next felt hands on him as his own seatbelt was being unbuckled.
"Stand." As John felt pairs of firm hands upon his arms, prompting John to stand and be pulled along and walk in tandem with his captors.
He was ushered down the ramp and onto the tarmac and was next made to briskly walk. Shouting could be heard all around.
" . . . What's going on . . . ?!"
" . . . Why are you people doing this . . . ?!"
" . . . Who are you people . . . ?!"
" . . . This is a violation of my rights . . . !"
Not only was he hearing people shout outrages, but also in other languages as well. Whatever was going on, John felt a perverse sense of relief that he alone was not targetted.
John felt disoriented as he was only aware of his feet underneath and the shouting around him. He thought he had heard muffled screaming and crying from some distant room.
"Stop here," the commander said as John was forcibly stopped, then next felt himself being shifted and ended up feeling a cool metallic edge pressing against his calves.
John felt his arms being manually steadied then another hand holding something cold and metallic pressing against his hands. At the sound of a snip, he discovered that his hands were freed.
"Sit," the commander said as hands planted firmly upon John's shoulders pushed him down. John felt as if he were falling until he felt a firm spongy padding underneath his buttocks.
The hood was pulled off, giving John a cool breath of fresh air.
"Hold still for a moment, sir," the commander said as he held a focus up before John's, causing him to comply and have the focus placed onto the side of his head.
"Hey, this isn't my focus," John said with a frown as he touched it.
"That's right, it's a replacement," the commander answered dryly. "Now then, you'll be called through that focus and directed where to go. Do you understand?"
"Y-Yes," John stammered.
"Good," the commander said as he briefly patted his shoulder, then turned and walked away with the others.
John finally got to look around to see just where he was. He was within a huge room that looked like the waiting room of a clinic. There were lots of people, possibly hundreds, all sitting in row upon row of padded seats. It looked like a waiting room. There were lots of armed guards stationed up by the walls and a set of large metal doors on either end, one of which John had surmised that he must have came through as the other had writing above it that could be read through his focus as an entrance for candidates. He watched a group of a dozen people walk up to the candidate doors, which next slid apart for them to walk through and close. There were even snacks and drinks to be found, even washrooms to one side for whenever someone had to use it. Those doors would slide open to let in groups of people. Sometimes he heard more crying and wailing from within, only for it to go silent. Those sounds of grief sometimes happened when those doors were opened. It happened everytime after a group of people went behind those doors.
John Aaron Casey Xavier Smith.
A woman called through his focus. His name had come up in bold lettering as a flashing direction icon at the edge of his vision that compelled him to look and see the candidate doors blink with lighting around it. John got up and walked over to it, along with another group of people who joined him. Inside, they were led to rows of seats before a presentation platform and each sat in a spot.
The hologram of a very familiar man appeared above that platform.
"Welcome to Project: Zero Dawn. I'm General Herres,Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs of the United States of America. I'm sure you've heard the rumors. That Zero Dawn is a top-secret superweapons program. The technological miracle that will save us from the Faro Plague, if Operation: Enduring Victory can hold off the robots long enough. The reason I'm sure you've heard the rumors is that I'm the one who spread them. And they are all lies. Zero Dawn is not a superweapons program, and it will not save us. Nothing will save us, and here's why . . ."
"You were selected to work on Project: Zero Dawn?!" Aloy exclaimed with wide-eyed wonder as she clasped his arm.
"That I was," John said. "And I get the feeling that you know about General Herres and what he had to say."
"Yes, and I promise that I will tell you what you want to know after you have told me what I want to know."
John blinks at her for a moment.
"So be it," he said. "But as for what General Herres had said, it was the worst bad news that I had ever heard in my entire life," John said. "I cannot begin to tell you how much it affected me."
"I'll admit that when I first watched it, I was confused. After all, the world still existed. So it made no sense to me really."
"Lucky you. Anyway . . ."
" . . . The hope of Zero Dawn is that something new might come after," Herres concluded. "But I will leave it to Elisabet Sobeck to shine that thin ray of light into the darkness. Herres out."
The hologram disappeared.
John sat there utterly bewildered over what he had just learned, feeling as if he were outside of his own body. Shocked was too mild a word. Flabbergasted? Stunned? Terrified? No, horrified was the best word. Horrified that these robots will eventually become seven million strong! Horrified that these robots will eventually turn the entire Earth into a toxic wasteland that threatens even the survival of bacteria! Horrified that nothing can be done to stop them! It was like something out of a science fiction movie!
No, not science fiction. Horror.
John was startled by several people screaming or crying as they collapsed to the floor.
"Why! Why were we shown this!" One of the women muffled in dispair through her arms as she lay on the floor. "Why bother bringing us here if it's hopeless! WHY?!"
A man next to him started giggly hysterically. "I-It can't be true," he gasped in a squeaky tone. His smile disturbingly broad and out of sync with his crazed eyes. "It's a lie! It's a lie! Right?! Right?!"
The man jumped to his feet and grabbed ahold of the shirt of a muscular guard and attempted to shake him.
"IT'S NOT TRUE! IT'S NOT TRUE! IT'S A LIE! IT'S A LIE!"
That staff member quickly sedated the hysterical man with an epipen to his neck. The wailing woman on the ground also got one as well. John could feel his mind seemingly drift away in despair and hopelessness and the surroundings seem to take on a fake quality.
"The next thing I was aware of was sitting in a seat facing a woman in a smaller room," John said in monotone. "It turned out that she was a counselor selected to deal with those who heard the Bad News. To clear our minds with conversation before we moved on to watch the Good News. It was a mental venting really. To get the grief out so that we could be more receptive to the Good News . . ."
The counselor across from John was a woman with a pale complexion and red hair done up in a bun, grey eyes in a triangular face, and dressed in a grey blouse with a green skirt.
"Hello Mr. Smith. How do you feel?"
"Ah," as John struggled to find the words. "I'm . . . feeling . . . relieved now."
"You were given inhibitors to suppress your stress."
"O-Okay . . . ah?"
"I'm just a counselor."
John takes notice of some guards nearby, knowing that they were for her protection.
"So now what?" He asked.
"Maybe now you would like to comment about the Bad News?" The counselor asked.
"The Bad News." Then chuckled with a smirk while looking down. "Yeah, that is as bad a news as anyone could ever get."
"Do you have any thoughts that you would like to speak of?"
John thought about that for a moment.
"Yeah," he finally answered with a firmness as he looked up at the counselor. "Yeah I do . . . I wouldn't wanna be Ted Faro. Where is he by the way? He's not here, is he?"
"No he isn't."
"Good." His tone turned intense. "What a fool of a man! The biggest fool in recorded history! He thought that by creating robots to behave like living organisms, he would be the greatest man in the world . . . ? Stupid . . . ! He created a Frankenstein that got out of control! There's a shitload of science fiction about artifical intelligence turning on us! It's a cliche really."
John sighed while lowering his head and brushed his hands through his blonde hair, then looked back up.
"But what did we end up doing?" His tone sarcastic. "We go ahead and create that cliche . . . It's like . . . It's like knowing that jumping out of an airplane without a parachute is going to kill you, but you still do it anyway."
"What do you mean by, we?" The counselor asked.
"What I mean is that Ted Faro didn't create them all by himself; he had an army of engineers and technicians to help him. Oh there were people who voiced their concerns over such machines, me included. I remember telling my friends and family that it was a bad idea, and some of them even agreed . . . But what did we all do about it . . . ? Nothing!" As he slaps his fingers into the palm of his other hand for emphasis and continues as such. "All of humanity could have all gotten together and stopped Faro . . . ! But none of us did!"
John groaned as he lowered his head once again and pressed his fingers against his forehead.
"We duped ourselves," he continued in a somber tone with a brief shake of his lowered head. "We duped ourselves into believing that it was all impossible. That it was only silly science fiction." Then looked up at her. "And now we're all paying the price. And all because none of us made any attempts to isolate Faro from what he wanted . . . You know," as he folded his arms and tilted his head quizzically while staring back at the counselor, "you're awfully calm about this. I mean, you must've watched that holo of General Herres. So you must know more about this than I do."
"Does that mean you're ready to hear what Elisabet Sobeck has to say?" The counselor instead answered as a question.
John was silent for a moment as he mulled that question over.
"Yes," he stated firmly. "Let's do this."
"Then you may go and watch," the counselor said with a gesture.
John left and went into another room like the one that showed the Bad News, though it was more of a corridor. The rest of the people who watched the Bad News with him were also there. They looked as if they had ran a marathon. Their movements zombie-like as they sat in their respective seats to watch another holo.
The hologram of a middle aged woman with red hair in a bobcut appeared before them and began her speech.
"You've heard the bad news, and it's all true. The Faro Plague is devouring the biosphere. Life itself will cease to exist. Global extermination. But does that have to be the end? What if we could give life, a future . . . ?"