The papers were too many, the personal to little and the administration process was a mess. This much the administrators of Zearta, a little colony not far from the core colonies knew.

And is not diminishing.

No matter how many reforms, new hiring, donations or good policies they implemented, the situation was always the same. And it was getting worse with the years.

Kilius was an average administrator, he woke up at 6:30 am, had breakfast and at 8:00 am he cautiously turned on his device. 887 new message, 157 new tasks, 40 missed calls. For some strange and inexplicable reason Zearta, contrary to practically every single planet was the only planet were administrators and people were using devices less and less. Trying to have as much time as possible free from them. How strange, it must be some strange traditions.

He carefully scrolled through the calls and tasks. In a minor paper process yesterday a minor error had generated seven new errors, generating new tasks and requiring to process 120 new papers again. He glanced at the work clock.

Time left 54h 23m.

That was only today workload. No matter how hard he worked that wasn’t going down. He arrived at the offices and was immediately bombarded by information.

They were 30 urgent notification: the council had asked some extremely important documents which were no were to be found, new factories had to be built immediately, a reactor had nearly fuse yesterday and…

The list went on and on for pages. In the other screen, there were things to manage and keep an eye on. 734 windows, the colonial average was 46 and lawyers advised no more than 25. He began working and checking things, not even to time to read the whole paper that three new problems and tasks had arrived, he checked those and new tasks had arrived and new ones and… he paused for a second, this is a medical document, how it arrived here?

He checked the document history and found that the medical department had sent it to the administrative department because they couldn’t decide on what to do, so they throw the ball at them. A habit much widespread.

And after ten infinite hours and seeing in another politician on tv accusing them of being lazy because another reactor had melted because of their slowed, he returned home dead tired.

Not even having the strength to undress, he trowed himself in bed were he begun thinking about his job. Automatization was not enough, robot aids were not enough, tasks manager were not enough. Hell if this was legal even productive enhancing drugs won’t be enough. They needed something more, something that would change forever the administrative procedures.

Something that he thought for a long time but now it was different, now he really wanted to change things. He trowed away the sleeves, pick his tablet-e-reader and looked for solutions. He didn’t found anything, of course, million had done the same things, person smarter and more erudite than him. So he went to bed dead tired and defeated.

This habit of him continued for many days until one night, in a mad and surreal dream vision, he found the solution and glimpsed perfection. He immediately picked pen and paper, he prefered those things, and begin writing anything that he remembered from that dream.

He immediately called his superior, telling him of the idea. And his superior told this idea to his superior, and his superior told this idea to his superior and so on and on. Until weeks later it didn’t arrive at the top of the chain. The matter was discussed at length in the planetary judge’s halls and there was much opposition in public. Kilius had become a public figure at this point.

The debate wasn’t so much on the reform itself or his advantages, everyone agreed that it would be advantageous. The problem was that it was severely prohibited to do such a thing and many deemed such reform as extremely unethical.

After much deliberation the planetary judges voted, the reform was passed for a sliver of votes.

The following months were passed in a mixture of fear, excitement and anxiety, no one knew what would happen. At certain points the news broadcasted the direct.

After five-hundred years an AI was again in a world core controlling it.

Of course, the engineers studied the AI for long and did thousand of simulations. Of course, AI was used in everyday life, the problem was not this. The problem was that considering the sheer size of information and data that he had to manage the AI needed a degree of freedom never given to any other AI until then.

The days passed by, the AI was doing his job in a superb way. Lighting much of the workload and helping the administration with errors. Weeks passed by an AI was becoming more and more efficient. Months passed by and the AI was forming some sort of consciousness, engineers were perplexed at this, they thought that consciousness might help her and so this was why it was developing it. Years passed by and the AI became more and more intelligent and took over many other positions.

Two decades had passed and the AI hadn’t given the slightest sign of error or rebellion, it was doing exactly what was programmed to do in exactly the way it was told to.

And things might have remained that way and Zearta might have become a model colony if war didn’t break out. A philosophical dispute used to mask a disagreement on resources and money led to the whole planet being nuked.

No transmission from it was heard until a century after the war when a rogue ship exploring the abandoned colonies of the old federation noticed some ships near that planet.

The news quickly spread and a war fleet was dispatched to the planet. Those might have been rebels!

They didn’t return, not even one of them.

The empire, such was the state that had emerged from the ruins of the federation, decided to send an expedition of explorer.

What they found sent shivers all through the imperium.

The AI hadn’t only managed to survive but had broke every law and was reconstructing the planet, all with robots and technology. From the synthetic trees to the Robo-animals, all was artificial.

He reigned not as a tyrant but as some sort of deity, watching and managing everything.

The most renowned soldiers and hunters were called for a desperate mission to destroy this dangerous AI. Who threatened to expand to new worlds.

Among this was Adam, a renowned mercenary who offered himself volunteer for the expedition.

As the doors closed and the capsules closed, he wandered back to his own planet and infancy. Before the whole capsule began to tremble and nearly break when it entered the atmosphere. His vision became offuscated and his stomach contorted before he loosed consciousness.

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