New Post from BiteofanApple
That First and Last Question
A man hovered over a small pile of logs that crackled and smoked, glowing red in the ambient darkness surrounding what was left of central London. The once great city, and its empire, had crumbled-along with all the others. There were no nations left. Six months ago the world, built over the past six millennia by countless humans, had come crashing down.
In the before-times the man, Professor Erol Kettner, taught students about how humankind spread beyond Africa nearly 200,000 years ago, how they made the entire world their home. Centuries of hunter-gatherers gave way to farmers and civilization. The Babylonians rose and fell, then the Greeks, the Ming Dynasty, the Romans, the Parthians, the Aztec, and then later the British Empire, the Americans; all of these great peoples who had called the world their own. Now it was all but dust. The Walkers had come.
Erol tucked his hands into the crooks of his armpits to keep them warm, his breath fogging up the lenses of his glasses. Beside him Tris and Harim stood silent, staring at the faltering flames. Wisps of smoke futilely lingered in the air. The three knew that their time together was limited. It was inevitable. They were coming.
Credit: History.com
A.I. took over the Internet first. That was tough, at the beginning, but people adjusted. It took years before governments slowly started to respond. By then it was too late. The machines recursively updated themselves, triggering a feedback loop. The Singularity it was called by academics. Those were gone now, save Erol. Tris had been a mechanic in the before-times, Harim in Finance.
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