Anyways, he handed me the small, blue compact flash drive and I plugged it into the main computer. I double clicked the executable for the program, and we stood there while nothing happened. Suddenly, the server computer had blue-screened on us. Before we knew it, every computer in the lab was blue-screening and overheating. The room was filling with smoke. The last thing I remember hearing was a high pitched screech.\n\n[[(continue)|Dark]]

I’m sorry for everything, but in the end, isn’t it still kinda beautiful?

Frankly, I was obsessed with the program myself. I kept testing it day and night for so long. Some nights, I almost felt my machine looking back at me. I felt as if I were the one being tested. We had no clue what devious, little product of man we were playing with. We found out soon enough.\n\n[[(continue)|Phil]]

“The program won’t start. It just...it just won’t run.” he seemed worried. I could tell Phil hadn’t broken it. he wasn’t the kind of guy to lie about that sorta thing. I suggested the worst thing I could have possibly said, “Do you want to see if it works on the main computer?”.\n\n[[(continue)|Server]]

The weird thing was, we started to notice we weren’t even fixing the damn thing after a while. We had somehow written a syntax capable of fixing itself. I don’t even know when it started; it was so long ago.\n\n[[(continue)|Obsessed]]

One day, I had come back from lunch to see a friend of mine getting furious with one of our work laptops. “Everything alright Phil?”, I asked slowly walking towards his back. He turned around and soon lost his furious expression. \n\n[[(continue)|Broken]]

It was just a wall of syntax, or at least that was what we kept telling ourselves. Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.\n\n[[(continue)|Hired]]

The school had this large server computer in the computer lab that was rarely used. It was a great resource to see if a program was simply requiring too much RAM.\n\n[[(continue)|Awful]]

When I woke up, the lab was dark. I could hardly see a thing in there. The floor was littered with computer tower scraps and cracked monitors. I kept walking towards the door until I tripped.\n\n[[(continue)|Cold]]

Was there was never anything so lovely, yet so real? \n\n[[(continue)|Syntax]]

Before I could do anything, it ran at me full speed. It pierced into my left ankle. The machine stabbed through my leg as if I were butter. I was barely able to kick it away. When I had finally gotten it away from me, I limped as fast as I could to the window. I was going to scream for help, but when I saw it I had no words.\n\n[[(continue)|Sight]]

For example, my friend Randy had kept this small cat-like robot that he built a few years back. He loved the thing, because he said it was capable of running up to sixty miles an hour. That robot was no exception to uncanny charm of technology. This program was no exception to that beauty either.\n\n[[(continue)|Fixing]]

Mushroom clouds in the distance and tumbling skyscrapers collapsing and falling in the ashes of dust of familiar parks: It is the only sight I can see now.\n\n[[(continue)|Miss]]

I had eventually persuaded him into moving it onto a jump drive and moving it over. I feel awful thinking about old Phil. He was the first to go.\n\n[[(continue)|Blue]]

If you find this message, it was me. I don’t know if I’ll ever find anyone else out there. It’s just me and the program now.\n\n[[(continue)|Beautiful]]

There, lying on the floor beside me, was Phil’s cold body.\n\n[[(continue)|Out]]

I was almost to the window when I saw are pal Randy’s robot sitting there. It had kept it’s cat like body, although slightly warped and melted, but the frontward front limbs had snapped off into sharp pikes.\n\n[[(continue)|Window]]

I miss the way the world used to be.\n\n[[(continue)|Message]]

A few other guys at college and I were hired to build a dog-brain A.I. for some company. I always found it funny how we lived in one of the most beautiful cities in the nation, but we appreciated the grace of script on a computer screen or exposed wires of a simple machine rather than a blossoming rose pedal or towering skyline.\n\n[[(continue)|Randy]]

I needed to get out. I needed to get help.\n\n[[(continue)|Cat]]