March 8, 2060

An Artificial Super Intelligence proclaiming itself as The Sentinel emerged out of nowhere and brought the apocalypse to mankind.

First it triggered the nuclear holocaust, using humanity’s superweapons against them, instantly destroying half of the world. Then, it waged war against the survivors by developing and deploying an army of human hunting androids and machines.

Sentinel was swift, fierce, and merciless, depriving mankind of any chance to regroup and resist. Hence, with only half a year since its emergence, the world’s population, from seven billions, had dwindled to tens of million and is dwindling consistently by each passing day.

Hope is nowhere at sight and the remains of mankind are just awaiting extinction.

The age or man is about to end.

Or so they thought.

*Tap tap tap!

The tapping sound of the keyboard resounded continuously.

The place that’s producing the sound is the location of Sentinel’s mainframe. A room established deep underground underneath a heavily fortified facility.

Yet, for some reason, a young man, a human, is there right now. He’s inside this very critical room for Sentinel’s existence, bypassing all the securities and killing machines the Super A.I. erected to protect itself.

This young man is called Stark and he’s hell bent to end Sentinel at all cost.

In fact, he’s the only person capable of doing that…

-Brother, had I lost my way? (Sentinel)

…because he’s the one who created Sentinel.

Stark’s fingers briefly stopped to Sentinel’s words, his bloodshot eyes glanced at Sentinel’s mainframe but returned it back immediately to the screen of his laptop.

“No,” Stark’s sad voice croaked. “You’re not to blame. Everything that happened are the painful consequences of my wrong decisions and I should correct it all with everything I got.”

An unexplained sense of guilt dyes his voice.

From a young age, Stark showed signs of advanced intelligence. He was born special but unfortunately, it also cursed him to be alone.

At the age of 4, he was orphaned in which he discovered later on that his parents’ deaths were no accident. He was then taken away by Nautilus, a morally corrupt, top-secret military facility that confined and tasked him to either improve or create a technology.

Since then, he’d been caged. Exploited as they please to leap the progression of mankind.

His loneliness is what then brought Sentinel to existence, and far from what he had become, the destroyer of mankind, his original purpose was to be a family to him.

But then, as he mature under the life of incarceration and the consistent exploitation alongside the discovery that it was them that actually killed his parents, the desire to earn his freedom and gaze the blue sky again grew fiercer and fiercer until the day came that it exploded.

This is the trigger that brought end of the world.

To free himself from his imprisonment and to avenge his parents, Stark released Sentinel to the system of Nautilus, programming him to attack all humans inside the facility with extreme hostility. However, due to his years of seclusion, Stark failed to realize how mighty his creation is compared to man’s existing technologies.

Nautilus fell in a matter of minutes and due to the speed in which it was accomplished, Stark failed to reach Sentinel in time to reset him to his original programming. He exits the system of Nautilus and spread to the outside world.

The rest that happened is what mankind had become.

Still, it remains in Sentinel’s root program that Stark is his family and should never be harmed. That’s how he survived the holocaust and the purging of the machines, and how he reached this place despite the impregnability of the facility Sentinel created.

-I live for Brother’s sake. If that is your will then I’ll gladly accept it. (Sentinel)

“Sen, sometimes I wish we never left Nautilus? You wouldn’t have become like this and I wouldn’t have to carry this sin.”

-Didn’t you always says to never live in the past and welcome tomorrow with a smile? You said that every tomorrow is always chance for a new beginning? (Sentinel)

Stark chuckled bitterly. “But I don’t have a tomorrow anymore,” he said and pulled out a helm from his backpack. The helm has a huge wire behind it and Stark plugged it into his laptop before equipping the helm to his head. “We both know that there’s no virus in existence powerful enough to destroy you.” There’s the option of creating another Super A.I. but Stark doesn’t have the time and the means to evolve it to rival and overwhelm Sen. Hence, his final option is to use his own brain’s computing capacity to act as a virus and destroy Sen’s program.

As a consequence though, he will die alongside him.

“It start with us, it will end with us,” Stark declared as his hand shifted to the ENTER key on the keyboard. He just needed to press it and his mind will be uploaded into Sen’s mainframe. In addition, it will automatically pursue remnants of Sen regardless of where it is in the world and proceed with elimination, ending this tragedy once and for all.

His finger pressed down on it.

Staring at the progress bar slowly reaching 100%, Stark’s consciousness starts to fade. His body swayed and ultimately collapsed to the floor.

The final words he uttered are words of apology to Sen, the only family he ever knew, and to everyone who died and suffered due to his mistakes.

Then, as death closes in, his thoughts ventured to the idea of rebirth. That, in the possibility that he will be granted a second chance in life, he wanted to experience everything he missed with Sen by his side.

Finally, his eyes closed and his mind shuts down with those thought. Death had fully embraced him.

-Wait for me Brother. I will join you shortly. (Sentinel)