Young Writers Society

The year is 2222, and humanity has become what it was afraid of becoming.

At a glance, everything seems fine. The world nations are at peace. A cure for every single natural disease has been found, whether it be in the form of a pill or nanomachines. A worldwide treaty has had all nuclear weaponry deactivated and dismantled. There’s universal basic income. Technology has been taken to its limit; there’s a colony on Mars, just about every automatable task has been automated, and people can practically come back from the dead through nanosurgery.

But we’re dealing with humans here. Look closer.

There’s been another world war. It started in 2140 and ended in 2140. In the space of one year, everything was decimated. Eastern Asia is a complete wasteland, Africa lost three quarters of its population, Europe consists of five countries, and America’s been divided into city-states, the land in between them empty plains. Nobody won. Everyone lost. The world population had stopped plummeting at 4 billion.

On the bright side, therapy became a much more lucrative profession.

Look closer.

In the opening months of World War 3, true artificial intelligence was created, born within a research facility in Phoenix, Arizona. These several million lines of code, dubbed the Max Sequence, replicated the human mind’s patterns and functions perfectly.

In less than a day, any machines holding the Max Sequence were quickly seized and hidden away in a secure, impregnable vault whilst important people with big titles debated about what to do with this new asset. As this happened, the secure, impregnable vault was hit by a few dozen secure-impregnable-vault-breakers and the Max Sequence was swiftly delivered to the world. Humanity went through an industrial renaissance at the same time as its worst global conflict. A new, unbelievably profitable market around Max Sequence AI was set up overnight. First, inhibitors. Then personality injections. Emulators that allowed blenders and coffee machines to become nihilistic. Small start-ups for robotic bodies became multi-million dollar giants. Prosthetic skin. Instant learning. Human cyborgs. And finally, military applications. Countries rich enough to afford them got perfect war machines. Human intelligence could be accompanied with inhuman efficiency. They were precise, they were fast, and they only rested for ten minutes once every eight hours. They killed people by the millions. You could imagine the reaction.

It was decided that human minds needed human limits.

When the war was over, the Max Sequence AIs – the war machines, the sex dolls, the robots trying to live normal lives – they were all decommissioned. A single command activated the kill switch within all Max Sequence AI globally, whether they were industrial, military, or otherwise. Each one was tracked down and recycled, without exception. The Max Sequence code was banned. Any person who possessed more than 100 lines of the code could be punished by life imprisonment. All scientific reports, data, and records that contained it were outlawed and deleted, all traces of it cleared from the world wide web.

Look closer.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, North America.

Two hundred years ago, one and a half million people lived here. Today, with most of America now irradiated and unusable, there’s four times that. The city is bleeding humans from every alley, street corner and broken-down home. In the centre is a mass of skyscrapers and a web of roads, etched and scarred by acid rain. Beyond that, spreading out as a mountain does over land, the city levels into apartments, then suburbs, then the slums: hastily made buildings only slightly better than wooden shacks, constructed in the years following World War 3 to accommodate the huge amount of people coming in. Small-town citizenry, rural farmers, war refugees. Most found work in building the then-radical “Great Wall of Philadelphia”, a huge physical barrier between the city and the sea, which scientists in 2142 had warned would rise by three metres, almost double the rate that had been anticipated before the war. With a champion’s mindset, the South Atlantic Ocean strove for greatness and smashed those predictions by going up eight metres instead.

It is here in Philadelphia that the story is set, and it is here that two losers in a bar downtown are having a drink.

-

Chapter 1

Two Losers in a Bar Downtown Having a Drink

“We can’t keep doing this forever, man, you know that.”

“It’s been going alright so far,” Chris said.

“Sooner or later you’re gonna slip up and get tracked down, or me ‘n’ Terry will get shot in the wrong place and you won’t have anyone to drink Harrison’s with.” John set down his drink and looked his young partner in the eye. “We’re both smelly old men, we’ve got our backup plans – but you don’t, Chris. You need some – some places you can go if and when this all turns to shit.”

Chris scratched the back of his head. “I’ve got ideas…”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Chambers?”

“Nah, they’re not hiring.”

“Waithe. They want pen testers.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s a bunch of small shops in the Copper district looking for tech dudes…”

“Nobody gives a shit about the Copper district,” John said.

“Yeah, I was just kidding. Council?”

“The Council?”

“Sure – could fire up a resume, show them a few programs, give them a spiel about my passion for development, blah blah blah. Easy.”

“I dunno if you’ve ever been told this, man, but you’ve got a pretty distinctive appearance. You’re gonna get scanned and identified and tased the second you show your face there.”

Chris frowned. “I could dye my hair.”

“And your eyebrows?”

“And my eyebrows.”

“And your skin?”

“I could do that too,” Chris said, slightly less certain this time.

John snorted and picked up his Harrison’s again. “Right,” he said. “Sure.”

“Or I could just get my hands on one of those face-changing thingies – hey, why am I the one being doubted here?” Chris said. “You can’t even get a girlfriend.”

“You don’t have one either,” John pointed out.

“Yeah, but you’re old.”

“Gonna pull out that card again, huh? I could get one, easy,” John said. “Just not really wise right now, considering what we do.”

“I totally believe you,” Chris said, in a tone indicating that he didn’t believe John whatsoever.

“I’ll show you right now.”

“Alright, Casanova, go.”

“OK,” John said, downing the rest of his glass in one go. “You think I can’t land a girl?” he said loudly, making sure the entire bar heard. “I’ll get a girl. Just gotta find the prettiest one here…” he turned in his seat, eyes roving till they landed on a pretty brunette sitting alone behind them. A pretty brunette that blushed furiously and stared at her table once she realised that John was looking at her.

“Hey,” John said. “What’s your name?”

“Alice,” the woman answered.

“You single, Alice?”

Alice nodded, far too red-faced to speak.

“Ever been with a black guy?”

She shook her head.

“Want to?”

She gave a shy nod, John slid off his seat to join her, and when he came back there was a triumphant, smug expression on his face and a new number in his phone.

“Girl gotten,” John grinned, nudging his younger partner, but Chris wasn’t looking at him.

“Chris?” John said, brow furrowing, then followed his gaze to the wall-mounted television. John’s mouth opened to speak again, then closed, falling into nonplussed silence like the man next to him.

The smattering of rain outside and the hubbub of the bar made the TV almost inaudible, but they didn’t need sound to understand what was happening. There was a tall building – an office , by the looks of it – shattered windows, smoke billowing out of the holes pounded into it. A close-up of the structural damage, wrenched steel and deep claw marks in concrete. More buildings. A skyscraper. A shopping mall, an ashen pile of what looked like the remains of several transport shuttles.

“Holy fuck, that’s in the middle of the city,” John breathed. Chris didn’t answer, eyes riveted on the screen where the newswoman was speaking. There was a video – a shaky recording of two dark silver streaks flying in and out of skyscraper windows, emitting blasts of light that left fire and rubble in their wake. Then, finally, a still image of one of the creatures – one of the robots, Chris realised. It was a robot. Sleek, streamlined form, digitigrade legs, almost unnoticeable slots all over the body where weaponry was hidden – and a faux face, completely featureless save for the two large shining blue eyes.

“That’s right up your alley,” John said.

“No,” Chris replied, still staring at the TV. “No, I never would… deal with one of those things, um… physically. Only, like, programming them. Or teaching them. Stuff that goes happens before they’re activated. Not... that.” He paused, breaking out of his reverie to glance at John. “That’s gonna take a fuckin’ military squad to deal with, not some computer nerd.” He cocked his head. “That’s up your alley.”

“Nah. I deal with bots sometimes, but not the thinky type,” John said, looking down at his now-empty glass. “Like this thing.” John motioned towards the machine bartender coming over, smoothly replacing his old glass with a new one. “Just does its job. Either works or it doesn’t. Nice and simple, y’know?”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “And the thinky bots take too much thinking for you?”

“Yeah.”

They chuckled and Chris’ eyes went right back to the screen, questions swirling around his head. “Look at that thing,” he said. “Must be still in development, cause I’ve never come across anything this advanced on the internet. Would’ve been worked on somewhere secure to keep it hidden. How did this –” he gestured at the screen showing the two androids blasting apart a grocery store, “–happen? There’s always a kill switch installed on every machine with any kind of humanlike thought. What happened to that? And where’s the company logo that’s meant to be on its head?”

“Who cares?” John said, already halfway through his new glass. “Just be glad they’re not on our end of town ‘n’ that we don’t have to deal with ‘em.”

It was in this moment that the bar door opened, and a chick with a sick hoodie and green hair walked in. She wore strapped boots, had a pistol at her hip, and was looking directly at him.

“Christopher Silverstone?” she said.

She knew his name. Big red flag. “Yes?” he answered.

“Finch. I’m from Blackwall. Can you come with me?”

Chris exchanged glances with John. “What for?”

“Business.”

Chris turned to face her and stood up, his hand hovering over his back pocket. “…Does it involve those scary robots on the telly behind me?”

“Uh…” Finch cocked her head for moment, listening into the small box under her left ear. “Yes,” she said, straightening up again. “It does.”

“What happens if I don’t want to?”

Again, Finch listened into her earpiece before answering him. “I will physically restrain you and have you come with me by force, and I’m allowed to ‘cause I got this piece of paper from the Council which says I can do that.” She paused. “And other things.”

John finally spoke up. “Chris,” he began, “this lady seems to be bothering you.”

“That she is,” Chris answered.

“You don’t seem to be enjoying it.”

“No I am not.”

Finch raised an eyebrow and looked at John. “John Barrister. You two are working together, huh?”

“You know me?” John said. “Well, I feel famous now.”

“Mmm-hmm. Do you know who I am?”

“Not a clue.”

“Great!” Finch said brightly. “Means I’m doing my job right.” She switched target. “Mr. Silverstone, are you gonna come with me, or do you want to do the, um, physically-restraining-you thing?”

“Whoa, now,” John cut in. “You’re saying that as if I’m not gonna bust your head in the second you try to do the physically-restraining-him thing. Chris ain’t going anywhere he doesn’t wanna go.”

At this, Finch sighed and frowned – but it was less of a concerned, scared-for-her-life kind of frown and more of an annoyed, why-do-I-have-to-deal-with-this kind of frown. Then the voice in her earpiece said something and she perked up again. “You’ll get paid hella money,” she offered.

Chris and John exchanged glances, then looked back at the woman.

“Well shit, why didn’t you just say so?”