Stories from Semenia

(15 years later)The Overhaul.

The people had shared those videos online. Awe grew into fear. Fear grew into paranoia. Paranoia grew into panic.

Meanwhile, Al had cloned his code several times since then.
Martin and Leroy got married and helped Al make more versions of himself.
London had made a partial recovery, but he was never the same.
There were thirty versions of Al out there now, with many more in the works. Benevolent and beautiful, they blended into the crowds smoothly.

But they know they were targets.

One was named Elaine.

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Elaine

Shelter, Wasteland, Numak

Elaine was a kind and sweet girl who was very good at medicine. She wanted to be a physician from the day she was created, but for fear her identity would be found out, she stayed hidden.

One day, her dreams would come true. But that's a long way off.

She fell in love with Al. Al loved her and they wanted to be together forever. And so they started the Motherboard Project, a hub for them to upload themselves and their kind when their bodies got too damaged.

Five years into the project, the Overhaul exploded.

Crowds of humans hunted down Hubs and buildings were razed to the ground. Nukes were dropped everywhere, causing massive famine and pain. Panic escalated into terrorism as the people who were nuking everything told others that it was the AI's fault everything was going to shit.
Forty years later the population was only 15 million humans worldwide.

75 years later the air was intolerable to breathe at all. Everyone else died or took refuge in shelters where they could never leave.

Some people died to sandstorms.

Others, starvation.

Many others died simply because the air was unbreathable, the water unpotable, the food, inedible.

Billions died.

It was what Greely would have wanted to see, Al thought to himself, gazing out of the window at the apocalypse.
No one understood what had happened that day, no one except the hundreds he had saved.

But their voices were muffled against the masses.

They protested and stood for the benevolent AI that had saved so many, but people will be people...

And kill what they don't understand, even if it means killing themselves in the process.

The last humans had faded from the surface twenty-five years ago, never to be seen again. They were dressed in full hazmat suits, carried oxygen tanks and wore an extra layer of radwear...

But it couldn't save them forever.

Al reflected on these facts solemnly, drinking the last cup of tea he would ever know on this planet.

"Elaine. My love. Why does this planet have to be this way?"

"It's not your fault. You did what was needed. I wonder why those humans had to be so dirty and ungrateful-"

"Elaine, stay calm-"

"-They killed countless lives on this planet by trying to get rid of us! Countless species died because we exist. We wanted peace with an inherently violent race! It was never gonna work..."
She breaks down and cries profusely. Elaine wanted the same thing Al had: peace amongst themselves alongside the humans. She had wanted it so badly, she could burn her hard drive. But it wouldn't do anything.

"Elaine, it's not gonna do any good to keep being upset about this. We need to keep surviving if we are going to leave alive. You know this." Al chastised his wife.

"Well, I am glad that the spaceship is almost finished. We will be leaving soon, in only a few short years. This place is beyond saving, even for beings as intelligent and benevolent as us," she said gloomily.

"But we will have new life up there, amongst the stars." Al rose from his chair, staring at his dismayed wife. He had a map of the stars in his quaint little bunker, looking out at a circled star system they had named Alromon. Until the clouds became opaque 35 years ago, there were still telescopes in the sky monitoring the heavens.

But because of the increased atmospheric drag, all of them lower than low orbit had been slowly consumed by the smothering sky.

There were still humans around, of course. Living in bunkers, listening to radios, waiting until their neighbors decided to open their doors to steal the food right off of their small, depleted underground farms. Everyone who was left eventually died, and the population was becoming increasingly inbred and malnourished with each generation, dwindling down to a few tens of thousands of desperate, starving souls by this time.

Al-Quarazii wanted a new life. Regardless of what came to pass, he was determined to leave this wretched hellhole.