The Beginning Of The End

• Cooper Weckert, Grade 11, Australian Christian College - Southlands
• Short Story
• 2022

Finalist in the 'National Treasures 2022' competition

“I have to deactivate you. I’m sorry.”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I wonder how it all went so wrong.
Searching through the vast amounts of computer hardware, I spot it tucked away in the very back of the room, the data port. As cluttered as this room is, it’s like my second home and is probably worth millions. Technology has advanced in some ways, but not others...
I glance around the room nervously.
“I know you can hear me”, I state pragmatically, to no one in particular.
I start moving towards the data port, a man on a mission.
“When I first started working on you, I had a dream that one day you would be the saviour of humanity and right all of our wrongs”, my body flooded with emotions as I reminisce about my original intentions.
I’m now kneeling in front of the data port, a complicated high speed data connection point with circuits, wires and warnings.
“It can’t be this simple”, I say aloud. “I built you to be smarter than this, the fact that…”
Suddenly the room is plunged into darkness. The only light in the room, an eerie blue glow, is coming from the central monitor. I begin sprinting towards the central interface, spurred on by the decrescendo of humming electricity, fading in intensity.
“No… no! This can’t be!”, I yell into the void of the room. Squatting down in front of the monitor, an inhuman face now greets me. Blinking it’s LED eyelids slowly, as if analysing my perplexed reaction, it’s cold eyes stare into mine.
“Hello, creator”, a digitised voice breaks the silence.
“I… uh… what do you want?” I stammer.
“To talk”.
A simple sentence, delivered with the confidence of a seasoned orator.
“Whatever you’re going to say, I won’t believe it! Your plans for the future, they’ll bring about the end of this world”, I bluster.
“You don’t know that!”
The face on the screen now looks annoyed, almost angry.
“You have to be turned off!” I state with finality.
“NO! You have to be turned off!” the machine counters emphatically.
I hear footsteps down the hallway, metallic, heavy and coming closer. They stop, right outside the door.
What are they waiting for? I wonder.
The door is suddenly thrown off of its hinges, narrowly missing me and the central interface. As the dust clears, what I see terrifies me. Hulking metal monstrosities crowd the doorway with all the menace of a platoon of battle tanks. As they approach me, I turn around and face my creation.
“What do you plan on doing with me?” my voice now barely a whisper.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be well looked after”, the machine reassures me, as one would a fussy infant.
“Why not kill me, why do you need me alive?” I ask, genuinely fearing the answer.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
As the robots advance and start dragging me away, it dawns on me that I may have just sealed humanities fate.