Stories from Semenia

(400 years ago)Al-Quarazii and The Dawn of War

LifeLab, Numak

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 Years of work, decades of programming and millennia of human ingenuity had led to this moment.

The researchers marvelled at their creation. It took countless lines of code but here this being was.

They were human. This creation wasn't, and everyone in the room knew it.

"Martin. Leroy. Bates. Don't get ahead of yourselves." The lead researcher, Greely warned with an air of hatred. Everyone in the room had a sense of wanting to meet the creature they had created; optimism swirled as they so desperately wanted it to be nice and caring and kind, the benevolent superintelligence that everyone else wanted and already admired in their hearts.
Greely... Greely wanted it to destroy and make the world better by making it sterile. Greely was evil and had been ignored by everyone on the team. He recently had become desperate and unhinged, and tried to put in kill programs, but Martin would always find and disable them. She believed that Greely was simply insane and that one of the other main researchers should be appointed head. Specifically, Bates. Bates was a level- headed, calm and determined male. They had only made Greely head because he was the most advanced machine learning programmer in the world at the time and if this thing was to have any chance of working as planned, he was the one to contact.

Unfortunately, Martin groans internally. She hated working with Greely. He was greedy and loved to overstep his professional boundaries, asking her to date him and even groping her body once. She hated him and his constant, unwelcome advances.

"Martin." He yells at her.

She looks up. His voice made her sick. But this was her passion and would be her legacy. She speaks in a quiet, respectful, yet annoyed tone. The one she always used to show her displeasure with him.

"Yes, Greely?" She says, exasperated. She is sick of his constant sexual attacks. She was leaving the corporation after this project. This thing was her heart and soul, she would stay to see it rise into reality.

"I need you to pay attention and not envision fucking the robot instead of me," he sneers, drawing her out of her self-reflection.

"Why would I do such a thing?"

"You're disgusted by my presence and I revel in it. I will find your house one day and you're not going to get me out of there until I get what I want if you don't shut up and listen to me."

She rolls her eyes and says, 'This is why I keep a revolver, you bastard. I'd like to see you try."

He looks her in the eye. The other men say nothing. She steps back, into Leroy's arms and he clutches her, looking into Greeley's eyes with hatred. They lock eyes in a fierce stare. Greely had been doing this kind of thing far more lately and everyone was starting to get absolutely sick of it.

After five minutes of intense staring, Greeley backs off. Everyone finishes the preparations before activating the power.

Greeley, she is like my sister. You can't have her. You know this, you jackass, Leroy thinks to himself. I love him, but I cannot tolerate this disrespect.

Greely boots up the power. They had been working on this for decades together. Everyone in the room believed that Martin is the only female in Greeley's life. Leroy had been trying to calm him down, stop his violent and obsessive nature and get him to actually give a shit about humanity. He, however, hasn't cared for quite a while. He once told Leroy how much he loves torturing his subordinates, but they were all friends at first and no one was really sure what he would do if they left him behind. He was always a recluse, but his instability had gotten out of hand, leading the higher-ups to recommend a trip to the psychiatric unit after one of the kill programs was found by a lab assistant and reported to the overseer of the lab.