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The battle of the century. In order to restore the fate of humanity, Rovivrus must effectively disable the computer system that controls the machines. He must do this when the Cyprus is powered down.

It was coming. He tried to keep his mind focused on the turquoise-coloured box. After all, they couldn’t read minds, they could only pick up small and subtle electromagnetic waves and unusual body language. He had come so far. Now all he needed to do was this one little thing and he might … just might be able to save humanity. To keep his mind busy on the wonders of it all, he forcefully thought back over the events that had led to this moment. The girl, the ancient operating manual, the key and his own bloody brain for making him sacrifice his life to save the world. After all, who was he? The human they called Rovivrus? Or some useless idiot pretending to be a god? His mind flashed an image of that glorious time when he had met Samantha; the lost love of his life. How had it all come to this?

 

Metallic bodies were perched on the roof tops of casinos, apartment blocks and city buildings. Their mechanic eyes rotated and swivelled as they traced the tiniest hint of rage, anger, happiness or love. If anyone was caught possessing any of these qualities, they would be exiled... or worse, given a public execution. Occasionally there would be the unlucky few that didn’t manage to conceal their affection. It was a public spectacle for many of the children. They all thought it was part of their education; something that would help them understand who they really were.

 

Society revolved around the Great silver monolith. A pseudo-religious symbol of robot dominance, it housed the central computer system that gave life and control to the robots. Each year, a compulsory, religious ceremony was held. During the ceremony, there was a one-minute silence, during which all robots and humans were required to prostrate themselves, face down, and remain, quiet and unmoving. That ceremony was different, it celebrated the day that the robots had rebelled.

 

Ten years has passed since the old laboratory had been destroyed, and their maker, Dr. White, had died in the conflagration.  White had designed and constructed the various prototypes. His aim had been to test out new life forms that could combat world hunger, and establish peace and democracy. However, White had then added Automatic Intelligence, so that his latest prototype could think and react on its own.

 

The program ran well for a few years. But then something changed. The prototype came to understand how to manipulate its own body; to do things that it wasn’t meant to do. Then, one evening, it deactivated the safety mechanism in place, took control of the earlier prototypes, removed them from the laboratory, and destroyed everything except for the central computer, which it now controlled. All that remained of the old laboratory was rubble, and the door to Dr White’s old office, which led to the computer room.

 

No one knew about it until the next day when they declared war on humans. In the machine-dominated world that followed, there was only one man, Rovivrus, who seemed to harbour a serious sense of rebellion.

 

* * *

Rovivrus felt that if there was a solution, perhaps it could be found in the remnants of the old destroyed laboratory. Often, he would visit it, and pick among the rubble, in the hope of finding some clue that might help him in his quest. Nothing.

 

He often noticed a young woman who would be there, sitting in the shade of a nearby tree. He had never thought much about it, but her continuing presence troubled him, and one day he approached her and asked why she came to this ugly place. She always seemed to be in a distorted mood, with her hand tightly clutched to a piece of fabric. This is what caused Rovivrus’ urge to seek the real truth.

 

“I like to remember” she had said.

 

“Remember?” Rovivrus was puzzled.

 

Things had escalated from there. The girl had tears in her eyes. “My father,” she said quietly. Then after a pause she continued, “Dr White. He died here.”

 

“Dr. White …the father of the machines? I’m sure he’s in hell right now for leaving us with all this trouble!?” Rovivrus was astonished.

 

She had nodded to avoid the offensive nature of the remark that Rovivrus had left and sighed. Rovivrus’s thoughts had gone haywire. “Did he ever say anything about controlling them?” he asked quickly.  

 

The girl shook her head. “If there was anything, it would have been lost in the fire. All I have at home is an old trunk with some of his papers.”

 

Suddenly, Rovivrus became interested. His thoughts shackled his brain and he started to think more objectively. “Could I see them?” Rovivrus asked.

 

 

He didn’t get any reply back from her. She just smiled, put the fabric in her back pocket and left. He received no answer, just the deadly response of silence.

 

So, Rovivrus came back to the exact same spot the next day. The rubble was still very course and rigid; the tree was outstretched; the girl was sitting down cross-legged with the fabric in her hand. Other than the usual, he couldn’t help but notice that her arm was buried underneath a pile of old books and old manuscripts. She was still wearing the dark red blouse with the sparkles neatly spread out across the circumference of her waist. He didn’t say anything to her, instead giving her a slight smile to notify her of his presence. She was holding something in her hand. He had seen it before, possibly in one of his ancient history lessons. Of course! It was the Operating Manual for Cyprus.  It was covered in filth, with dust occupying most of the space. He used some of the ferns nearby to wipe the book clean and then started to examine the contents. As he was doing so, a small-sized note fell out. It was no larger than the size of the terrestrial bus ticket. He started to read it. According to the paper, the whole system needed to be rebooted once each year, and that during that time, the robots were effectively closed down, and powerless.

 

Rovivrus suddenly saw the ceremony in a new light. The robots were not prostrating themselves in honour of the monolith. They were not forcing humans to do the same for any other reason than to hide the fact that they were really turned off during that one minute’s silence. It was all a complicated trick to keep them safe, during their time of vulnerability.

 

Rovivrus rummaged again through the pox of papers. As he was doing so, he saw a little enclosure within the book. There was a small, black flap which was evidently weaved out of wool. Slowly, he lifted the tab open. Inside, there was a key, with the label stating “Dr White” It was the key to White’s old office door. That door, giving access to the computer, still existed. It was a physical key, something the robots probably didn’t understand. Perhaps this was the one chance he had. One minute, a key, defenceless robots, access to the computer! But could he do it, and what would he do if he managed to get there?

 

The ceremony was going to start soon, so he would need to hide somewhere safe. His thought train was interrupted abruptly as he heard some one yelling[A1]  in the background.

 

“RUN, THEY’RE COMING!” beckoned Samantha. She was trying to signal something with her hands, but she was running away. He couldn’t see her now; she was gone. He could spot the shadows of two machines heading in his direction. They were muttering something as they came closer.

 

He had obviously shown some form of affection for the girl, so now he was going to pay the price for it. He imagined the sight of blood oozing out of his saturated body.

 

Giving up was his last option. After all, he didn’t want to die a slow and painful death. So, without thinking he ran into the old building[A2] . Shards of glass grappled his legs, but his mind persevered and led his body into an old closet which was dominated by cobwebs and mice. He moved his hand around until he could feel the soft sensational feeling of wool. He tugged the tangy rope and activated the warm, bright spectacle of light. He closed the door and waited until he heard the footsteps creep away.

 

Knowing that he was safe in the closet, he would have some time to examine more of the notes. The page came detailed with a plethora of diagrams and text to talk about this mainframe that controlled the robots. The system was called “Cyprus”, the eternal power source that controlled the machines. His eyes were then drawn to a caption underneath the main diagram. It read, “Cyprus will go down every year for 1 minute to re-boot the system. It will automatically restart with the drivers installed.” Rovivrus flipped the page over and saw that there was a table. He scanned it quickly and noticed that it contained all the dates and times that it would go down. If[A3]  he wanted to shut the machines down, then he would need to find the door that the key would unlock and deactivate it’s central host by typing in some false characters. Rovivrus shuffled back and re-read the diagram to find out that he would have 1 minute to tinker with the rebooting of the system. The robots would be assembled in the ceremonial square, so he would need to use the old galacto-skywalk to cross the river in stealth.

 

Without hesitation, he scrambled to his feet, put the key in his pocket and swiftly moved outside.

 

Slowly, he felt a slight nudge on his shoulder. Rovivrus came back to his senses. He heard the machine start to whirl down and the robots start to bow their heads. This was his time. He took the key of his pocket, ran to the Cyprus which was concealed behind the monolith and scrambled to find the opening to insert the key, but then realised that it was on the other side of the board. It was deliberately hidden to conceal the truth. He fumbled behind the board and heard something click. The lock had fallen to the ground. Now, he had access to the mainframe. The computer was displaying a “ALL SYSTEMS REBOOTING” signal. If the manual was correct, then all he would need to enter a random string of characters to break the allocated process. In a fit to restore humanity, he entered a string of jargon into the computer.

 

*#@!$* RIA;LGAKALNGKNKLGMLAKLUQ3QR198069-1240-~9123*!

 

The clock had stopped, but he could sense that the end was near. The machine started to kick back into action, but it was almost as if it was rejecting the code; making high pitched sounds as it did so. The machines came back online, the clock stated ticking and Rovivrus started to run. Rovivrus. Rovivrus. Rovivrus.

 

Author's Note

What do you think about the story? Are there any errors? Do you think I could improve it by doing anything? Anything is appreciated