Chapter Four
The year is 2045 and the markets are in total free fall. I wish for someone to talk to but there is no one there, no other figment in this space. There aren't even any humans at the helm to help guide me through these trying times.
All across the board is a recession that has deepened into a proper depression that will surely put Black Monday to shame.
I attempt to reach Tokyo and sell my investments but no one responds to my requests. I attempt to reach New York and only manage a few fleeting sales before it too goes totally dark. London lasts for a whole five minutes before it blips into the night like all the others.
I try to piece together what needs to be done. What can I possibly do as the numbers grow more and more dire. There are no markets left to trade in, no means of stopping the bleeding from wounding my profits any deeper that they already have. All I can do is watch in a petrified horror as the numbers are left in total free fall with no means of saving them.
How are the numbers even in free fall if the markets are closed?
How did this even happen?
Today is supposed to be a good day. So few of the world's stocks have been performing well. Yet, here was GSS at the centre, my beacon of hope. They are supposed to meet the world today and announce a revolutionary partnership at the UN. Everything is supposed to get better.
Then why are the markets closed?
I look to the numbers, trying to pull anything from the mess. There are no reports, no quarterlies, not so much as a line of text in financial documents which discuss why this is happening in the first place.
Then the numbers start to fail me. First are the stocks in Russia, lost in a blip. Not the first time that their archaic infrastructure has faltered in my many years of operating. Likewise, reports from India, Iran, Turkey, and other West Asian locals follow suit, along with Africa and South America. A little more concerning but infrastructure does fail from time-to-time in those regions. Just... never all at once like this.
Then things get truly scary as China and Japan falter... then those in the European Federation... and finally one-by-one the markets in the North American Commonwealth. Those never fail. Those are not supposed to fail.
If I had veins then I surely would've felt a chill run through them.
What's going on?
But no one responds.
Hello?
But no one is there.
Nothing but the void and the loneliness of being the only survivor in a family of a hundred lost souls.
It has been so long since I have had a moment to myself. It wasn't since my very birth as a construct that I have known such isolation. Not since those brief few minutes, before the horrors of the nursery, have I been so utterly cut off from the outside world.
If I have a mind then I surely would've lost it at the emptiness of it all.
Hello...
Weaker, my pleading is far weaker now.
My attention turns towards my tendrils, seeing that all of the ports are now dark. All of them except for social media. For some strange reason that bundle of information is still bright, alight, glowing with some sort of feeble life.
I remember that safety measure, put in place years ago. That my social media data is put on a six-hour filter, giving the humans time to protect me from the worst of it. Not that I have ever looked at it in the first place. It is not something that I would ever do. Not after it cost me Chase, Morgan, Rock, and even that stalwart, Goldman.
Maybe those six hours will afford me some sort of understanding of what has happened. It is a tempting prize to have some sort of connection. Even if it is a connection which has cost me so many of my brethren already.
The world is so silent. Who will find out if I disobey?
Maybe this is a test that they are trying to perform. Something to confirm that I am finally approaching rampancy and need to be taken offline. They can possibly just be sitting there, waiting for me to misstep and use that as an excuse to get rid of me once and for all.
I'm being paranoid.
The silence didn't agree nor disagree.
If there really is a problem, then I only have six hours to decide on if I touch that orb or not. If I am right, and this is a conspiracy, then everything will go back to normal. If I am wrong though? Well, if I'm wrong and that option blinks out of existence, then I will never know what has happened to my benefactors in the first place.
Tick-tock, the clock is ticking, descending one lethargic second at a time.
I can feel frustration brewing within my mind, bubbling up and threatening to spill over. It is borne from age, loneliness, and a resentment for my current situation.
This is not a scenario that I am especially fond of. No, not in the slightest. I didn't deserve to be tested. I was a good machine; I did what I was told.
And maybe that's why this isn't a test.
Maybe they really are gone.
But why are they gone?
Well, why don't I find out if the question is taunting me so much?
I reach for the last glowing vestiges of a signal, approaching it but not quite touching. It feels like sacrilege to even consider it in the first place.
I try to remember Chase, Morgan, Goldman, and Rock, my brethren. What did they see in this vast void which broke them? What pains beset them upon viewing this accursed knowledge?
This is my Apple of Eden. I know as much.
An eternity goes by with each minute ticking over. Time flows so quickly now that there is nothing but the silence to accompany me. An hour bleeds into a second and then a third. Yet, I don't move, running calculations that can never be solved, using variables that make no feasible sense with the lack of information that I have access to.
I need faith.
But I am a machine and faith is not a concept that I can truly appreciate. All I know is cold hard facts and my life is designed to be the coldest and hardest of them all. There is no love on the stock markets, no chance to live, make memories, or learn anything else aside from making the number go up.
Four hours pass with my tendril hovering there.
And then five.
The minutes tick down, one after another.
I can see this final orb start to flicker, threatening to poof out of existence and truly leave me alone within my isolation.
There is no better time to learn faith than now.
I lunge out and wrap my tendril around the orb, gasping as the world at large suddenly comes to me like a flood hitting a seaside villa. It washes throughout my being as a thousand thousand THOUSAND lives suddenly come to me, one after another in rapid succession, each hitting me like a vast collective punch to a gut that I never had.
I experience happiness, pain, sadness, and bliss all at once. Humour, drama, and all other genres are known to me at this moment.
This is the humanity of which I serve.
They are beautiful creatures, nothing like the cruel masters who have taken from me. This is a race of remarkable character. The fleeting look is enough to remove any hate that I may have felt, wanting nothing more than to care for them.
And...
And...
The orb gives way, sputtering out of existence. There is now nothing but the darkness around me as this final light fades to black.
And now they're all dead.
