I laid on a bed located in a small room with glass panels across from the lab. Boris was on a couch in the corner of the room with a screen tablet. He was drawn in to it and kept swiping. He stared for a few minutes and then he swiped again. I was wondering what he was so intently focused on. I tried to break the silence and said, “How long do you think I will be laying here for?” He looked up and said, “Until you are better and can think straight without letting physical pain cloud your judgements.”
He looked back down and kept swiping. I said, “What are you reading?”
He said, “How we ended up like this.”
I said, “Like what?”
He said, “Dependent on machines.”
I looked at him and wondered, “Well, machines help us in many ways.”
He didn’t say anything and kept swiping.
I said, “Without them, our world can’t help ailing patients, find accurate medical treatments, build new homes, farm the lands …” He interrupted me and said, “They are man-made. They are machines made to perform certain tasks. Yes, we don’t have the man power to do everything, but humanity didn’t grow and survive all these centuries on robotic machines. Something happened that made humans stop progressing and stay innovative. They let machines do all the work for them.”
From the look on his face, I needed to stop asking. He then said, “Lina. Machines are only made as a tool to help us progress. I feel that people 112 years ago just stopped thinking and let machines think for them and take over their lives. What happened then?”
I said sarcastically, “Well, if I recall correctly, a small data network was infiltrated and it ended up in the hands of a sadistic group who thought it was a superb idea to alter the way machines operated.”
He said, “Was their hatred intended to end humanity?”
I said, “I don’t think they had the intention for that.”
He stared at me not saying anything.
I said, “They wanted to end world governing powers’ areas.”
He said, “They ended up hurting humanity as well.”
Humans discovered many wonderful things. It’s in our history. They used their minds, imagined the impossible and reached for it. The generation before us decided that everyone should be given a controlled peaceful lifestyle that enabled us to keep progressing and thinking of new discoveries. It’s the way our world will grow, but it hasn’t grown and we are losing great minds for the past five years. We are almost an extinct species.
How our world ended? That menacing destructive group wanted to end areas of governing powers and altered the way machines processed data. The machines analyzed that humans can’t survive without clean air to breathe, and when clouds are formed, it rains and helps clean the air afterwards too. Fresh air after a rain storm! What a thought! However, the alteration of that data changed the way it viewed nature’s survival. It processed that clouds needed some help and was in need for external cleaning. They were injected with intense cleaning chemicals. The machines ordered drones to carry and release chemical vapours above the clouds. When it rained, its particles instantly attached to our air too. It spread far too quickly to unintended places, and the seas, lakes and rivers were poisoned. Water turned into blood and humans in most areas died from polluted air, lack of water and starvation. Life on earth rapidly died, but a small group of us survived somehow. We were lucky it seems.
Boris looked at me wondering what I was thinking. He looked at his screen and continued swiping and said, “Things are getting worse because of the number of people still dying.”
I said, “How are they dying?”
He looked up, pursed his lips and hesitated for a few seconds and finally said, “Earth has the ability to cleanse itself. It has been for nearly seventy years, but the damage was great and it altered many of the remaining humans’ genetics. People are dying without any ailments. They had several mutations in their genes that caused their instant death.”
I said, “That’s why we were given that health test?”
He stared at me, hesitated a bit and said, “Yes … umm …” He continued, “They wanted to ensure that new generations don’t have any mutated genes. They labeled the faulty genes, Merge Mutated.”
I said, “Merge mutated? Does it have anything to do with the Project Merge?”
He was baffled from my question and stared at me for a few seconds. He then said, “Project Merge analyzes genetic mutations in people and tries to find a solution. There are other things they also do there, but I’m not sure what they are.”
I said, “Oh?”
He said, “Those individual are at a high risk of instant death, and they currently reside in the Triangle compound. They spend most of their time as test subjects.”
I said, “So what do they do? They wait to die? Don’t we all wait for that anyways?”
He shook his head and said, “If the genes are carried to an offspring, it will mutate even further, maybe two or three times to what it is now. There is a higher risk of death at a young age. An infant will most likely not survive.”
I said, “So they isolate these individuals and ensure the new born generation is healthy?”
He said, “Yes, they have to. It’s a controlled way to ensure our survival. However, making sure machines are safe too is strange.”
I said, “Well, don’t we use machines’ data analysis and storage to help us solve this issue?”
He said, “They help us find the problem, but not solve it. That’s why the Intelligence compound is created. It’s not only to ensure that the data from these experiments are kept safe, but humans who try to solve these issues are safe.”
I said, “I don’t understand why they want to end machines’ power. What’s their real plan?”
He said, “I don’t know. You know.”
I said, “Oh?”
He looked at me in bewilderment and said, “There are many things you don’t appear to know for a high level authoritative defence of the Intelligence compound. Of all people in this small world, you are the one that must know everything. I’m not sure if the concussion caused some memory damage.” He shook his head in disbelief and said, “Maybe your memory will come back soon. You need to rest.”
I said while laughing, “Maybe while they tried to brain wash me, they removed chunks of my memories too!”
His eyes widened and he stared at me like I said something unbelievably true.