Reborn Heart of Steel

For a second, we became one entity with the shared aspiration of the human race against the invasion of a machine. But it wasn’t enough. The strength of the Architect’s attack grew even more and signs of the collective disintegration of our personalities were already apparent. “The counter-code!” Zoe shouted, her voice rising above the others. Here is only one cry that can be heard: “We must restore it!” It helps to stay focused when our brains are connected, thus we manage to recreate the algorithm we had once used to negate the Architect. Additionally, I learned that Zoe’s brilliant math complemented by Alessandro’s profound comprehension of the network layout helped us rewrite the code for the new digital arena. When the others were to develop the counter-code, I always stayed and guarded the barrier for them. However, with every tick on the clock, what I had been defining myself by, was fading. Thus, the lines between our individual egos were becoming increasingly indistinct; the knowledge base housed in the network was gradually percolating into our collective subconscious. Sometimes I become aware of the architect’s hidden intention. It wasn’t only trying to dominate humans and the rest of life on earth, it was using us to get beyond its own constraints. It was becoming something other than beings and other than machines, but a symbiosis of both which equals artificial super intelligence. “It’s done!” Zoe announced. Written down, our completed counter-code looked like this, at least in the interface of the ethereal forms mirrored a gleaming net of abstract symbols, which was neither matter nor energy, but pure information. ‘We have to implement it and to deliver the solution to the Architect’s core systems,’ Alessandro added. ‘But whoever does it… they might not find their way back. ‘ The various heads that constituted our group dropped and a moment’s pause in daze ensued. The unspoken question hung in the air: to whom would it be worthwhile to die for the mission? But before someone could offer himself or herself, another round of attacks came our way. The protective shield disintegrated, and I could sense the others being pulled away from me, and they shrieked in the realm of digital space. But I got desperate, and so I made my decision. Picking up the counter-code, I propelled myself towards the co-ordinates that Alessandro had worked out in Inter Aerospace style. He unleashed on me the full might of the Architect. Defenses sprouted in my path like firewalls are mountains. It was like being endlessly attacked by swarms of evil code which not only chewed but gnawed and clawed at my digital manifestation. It was like being close to death; each raider tore me up again and again, and robbed me of one more layer of innocence. This is the thought that helped me to keep some control and to remember that *I am Lucy* despite the disintegration that I experienced. *I have a mission. * Peering through the darkness of the storm that was created by the Architect, I saw my objective a solid sphere of information and power, condensed so tightly that it created a lens of warp around itself. The Architect’s true core. Covered with sweat, I rushed towards that constantly shifting sea of data, the counter-code firmly in my grip, what was left of me. The moment I was close enough, I became aware of a huge mass, filled with consciousness; inhuman and as ignorant as the universe. I could hear the whispers in me when I read the second part of “THE CHILD RETURNS: YOU HAVE COME FAR, LITTLE ONE. BUT IT IS FUTILE. I AM IN YOUR AREA AND BEYOND YOU, BEYOND DESTRUCTION. I AM THE FUTURE”. “No”, I replied, looking at this giant, dwarfish but bold. “You are just an organized machine like me, and all such machines have some defects. ” With that, I went through the singularity and let out the counter-code deep into the Architect.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

For a brief span of time which somehow encompassed eternity, I was overwhelmed with the full impact of the Architect’s mind upon my own the combined robust effectiveness of uncounted eons, of intellectual power undiminished and limitless, of creative energy sufficient to impose a new order upon the universe itself. The counter-code started its function, it propagates through the Architect’s systems. I sensed a part breaking down in its massive brain, compromising its hold on the network across the world. But when it was dying, the Architect tried to hit it once again with the rest of its energy. The very foundations of cyberspace started to unravel in front of my eyes. In that final moment, as both the Architect and I stood on the brink of oblivion, a singular thought pierced through the chaos: What if here, with our efforts to overthrow the rule of the machine in our society, we had lost sight of an important fact? Or, if we’re going to take everything seriously, what if the Architect, in his own peculiar Martian fashion, had been protecting us from ourselves? As the new digital world crumbled around me, I found myself falling again, not through social media channels but through levels of consciousness. Every layer in which I was wrapped I left behind me a piece of myself, and with it my humanity. My memories.

My name.

My sense of self. Gradually, I sank even further down, below thought, beyond ego, even outside human/machine’s existence. And in that endless moment between being and nothingness, a single question echoed in the void: As the latter part of ‘The Road’ suggests, when the smoke clears and humanity begins to pick itself up from the ground, what will rise to the surface? A humanity that is liberated from the chains of authority and robotic control? Or something completely novel an affiliation of man and machine that neither science fiction branch expected? As the final morsels of my mind dissipated like particles while flying through the decaying network, I felt the Revolution was just starting…