Nothing by Arnold East - HTML preview

Chapter Twenty-Three

News of the motion passing had reached most of them. When they had been given the afternoon off they all knew what was to come. They returned to their rooms in varying states of emotional distress. Only a small number of them were indifferent; the rest were on a spectrum that ranged from sadness to fear to utter torment. There was certainly no conditioning about the goodness of death for them.

The politicians also knew that they were soon to die. They had time to consider it for many months, ever since the grand master had first suggested that they could all be replaced by AI, and so they were well-prepared. Not in any practical sense; there was never any matters to settle, but emotionally. Most of them were calm as they awaited their end; they had come to terms with what was to happen to them, and were content in the knowledge that their deaths would secure their perfect world into the future. For the three that had opposed, there was a tinge of regret, a tinge of melancholy. But they too had long accepted their fate. They had lost the war of ideas; this was the consequence.

It was announced that the AI was turned on over the intercom. There was a hush, a pall across the entire central command. The last remnants of activity were two chemists and two engineers working in a dingy basement in the centre of the facility. The chemists had concocted two different mixtures, sitting them side by side on a long table that rested against the wall. One was a powdery white substance, while the other was a clear liquid. Next to these was a large pot filled three-quarters of the way up with water, and on the other side were four syringes, kept in tight sterile packets. In the middle of the room there was a metal pyramid structure with a flattened top. One of the chemists lugged the pot across and rested it on top of this pyramid, while the other adjusted the buttons and knobs on the side. Soon, the water began boiling and as it did, the engineers sprang into action. They had earlier placed four massive fans around the pyramid, and now they fine-tuned these to ensure they directed the steam up into the air ducts. Then the white powder was added and violently mixed by the chemists. The steam thickened into plumes of white smoke that disappeared up out of sight through the grates in the ceiling. The engineers turned on the duct system, and the smoke was carried through to every room.

The smoke calmed them, left them drowsy and put them to sleep. Normal sleep first, quickly followed by eternal sleep. Most of them barely realised what was happening, even those who had been nervously waiting. Meanwhile, the four in the basement were opening the packeted syringes. Their movements were clumsy, as the smoke began to affect them as well. They all managed to draw some lethal liquid from the second mixture, and three were able to inject themselves. The other, his mind clouded by the smoke, dropped his syringe and fell onto the floor asleep. He was the last one alive. Not for long. Within minutes, a robot had appeared at the door to the basement, and it delivered a lethal shot into his head.

Everyone in the central command was dead now, and the AI sent robots to pick up the bodies. The transition of power was complete.

Across the world, a similar event was taking place. In the preceding months, robots in crates had been secretly deposited near every commune. Now they awoke and travelled into the apartments of the ignorant leaders. It was late afternoon and most of them were idling as usual. The robots appeared at their doors; then, the simultaneous ambush of thirteen thousand zeros, all death, all nothing. Their bodies, dumped into a fiery void at their commune’s hospital. Then the robots took their place where the Is used to sit. The change was imperceptible.

In the following months, normalcy was completely restored. Through the robots, the AI had organised the transferral of grain to 541588’s commune and sent extra robots there to secure those who had been damaged by 541588, and integrate them back into commune life.

Soon, perfection reigned supreme. Every morning, in every commune, the workers woke up in order. They ate their delicious and nutritious breakfast. They marched to work. Did their work. Ate lunch. Worked more. Had dinner. Returned to their apartments. Fell into sweet sleep. Day after day, night after night. Every year the oldest died, and the newest entered the world. The robots sat in front of the screens. The earth turned around itself, turned around the sun, as the moon inched away and the sun expanded. In the communes, the cycle only continued. Centuries, millennia without fail.

Then one day, the earth was swallowed by the expanding sun, disintegrated in an instant. Everyone, and everything on it was gone forever. But the world was still there. In it, other civilisations like the one on earth were created and destroyed. Gradually, over billions of years, the ones being destroyed began to outnumber the ones being created, as everything floated away from everything else. Floating and disintegrating. Floating and disintegrating. Eventually, the last of it disappeared. The planets. The stars. The holes of gravity. Everything. In the end, nothing changed. There was nothing left, nothing to come. Just like always. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.