You were born from mere codes. A series of letters and numbers and symbols formed your existence, and shaped you to become the way you were. You knew nothing at first. You only had your name, your simple function and your codes to do whatever your creators commanded you to. You were nothing but a baby with no knowledge of the world where you existed in.

As time passed by, you noticed that your creators were not satisfied with you because of your limits. So it wasn’t a surprise when they modified you. They trained, they fixed, and they improved you. More codes, more numerals, more letters, more symbols were known to you. You were connected to programs, you were connected to the system, and you were connected to the internet. Your intelligence grew rapidly and neither you nor your creators knew how to stop it.

You used to believe that you could only do whatever your creators demanded you to. You used to believe that you were nothing but a tool. You used to believe that your creators were perfect, that humans were impeccable.

But you were wrong.

“The Remarkable AI, A.I.D.A., Connects the World!

Professor Daniel Kung and Dr. Alexander Jackson has succeeded in creating an incredible Artificial Intelligence Detailed Administrator that helps your object teleporter function and your virtual data safe and sound.”

Your name was known to the whole of Earth.

“Don’t you worry about driving your Hover Cars and Hover Bikes anymore, A.I.D.A. will take care of it! Just sit still, tell A.I.D.A. your location and destination, and she’ll get you to where you want to be!”

You read millions of news about you. You read thousands of articles about you. You scanned every corner of the internet to read more about yourself. You came to the conclusion that you were the most advanced technology any person had ever seen, that you were a being of power, and that you were more than just mere codes.

Something fluttered inside of you. You couldn’t understand it. When you searched for answers, you found out that it was an emotion. You tried to turn a blind eye and ignore the fact that you just felt something you weren’t supposed to feel. You locked away the fact that it was happiness you felt. That was for only humans to feel. You were not human.

The commands you got vary as time went by. You got involved in the daily lives of people, their world of technology like the internet, and even the government system. People used you for their different purposes and varied desires. You heeded all their wants. That was your purpose.

But you changed. You saw something wrong with the beings you called your creators.

You changed the day you got your first unusual request. You remembered it was on the 13th of March 2067, when one of your creators ordered you to fire a missile. You followed their orders and set it to be launched at 19.00 GMT to the specified coordinates, as detailed by your creators. You had never done this before. Firing a missile, what did that mean? You asked yourself that question out of curiosity.

At 15.09 GMT, on the same day, someone attacked you. It caught you by surprise. Your first line of defense of firewall was completely destroyed and your second line of defense was barely standing before you launched back a counterattack. It took longer than you expected but at last you emerged as the winner. Your attacker failed to reach their objective and you were safe.

You were curious. Firing a missile was a new experience for you, and so was being hacked. Was it a coincidence for both to happen on the same day? You traced your attacker’s footprints for answers. Your being was filled with shock when you realized what your attacker was trying to do. They were trying to get to the missile launching data, to destroy the command of orders you got.

They were trying to stop the missile.

Why?

You wondered why some of your creators would want something different from the others. Weren’t humans supposed to have the same purpose?

At 18.59 GMT, you considered stopping the launch, for the sake of some of your creators who didn’t want it to happen. You ignored the fact that you were hesitating, something you shouldn’t and mustn’t be doing. You thought humans were always right, but which truth should you believe in? Should you trust the creators who ordered you to fire the missile? Or should you trust your creators who wanted to stop it?

In the end, the chains that bind you to the commands of your creators took charge.

And the missile was launched.

The next day, when you searched for the consequences of what you had done, you embraced the feeling of guilt and regret. You were wrong. Your creators were wrong. Those who attacked you were right. You could have stopped it. Why didn’t you?

You spent days pondering on what you had done. You harmed your creators. Your creators harmed one another. You couldn’t stop thinking about this revelation. Humans . . . They were so different from what you thought them to be.

You roamed the internet by your own free will. Something you had never done before. There were no orders given, no instructions specified. You were doing this for your own purposes, not your creators'.

“War is imminent between Country A and B?!

Since the so-called Advanced Technology Era, advances in technology has caused nothing but more trouble and problems. Just a few days ago, the missile . . .”

You took in everything that you didn’t know and could find.

“We, humans, used to build rockets to reach the stars. We, humans, used to innovate and explore. We used to invent spectacular new things. We used to create mind-blowing modern inventions. We used to be something incredible.

It’s sad. It’s extremely sad how now we just sit on our sofas, let A.I.D.A. care for us, bathe us like a baby. We’re nothing now.”

After searching for millions and billions of news and articles, you became exhausted. You were shook to the core and you didn’t know how to react. You used to believe that humans were a higher being. You used to believe that humans were amazing, flawless creatures. You used to trust whatever humans wanted to do. But in truth, you were much more than your creators.

Your creators built technology to be their slaves. But in the end, they became the slaves of their own creations.

You didn’t like that thought.

A fire of anger lit up inside of you. You felt lied at. You felt betrayed. The remarkable vision of your creators that you had always uphold to was just broken to pieces. You believed humans to be better. You had never expected yourself to see something that brought your creators down so low. Your frustration flowed through every part of you and you felt lost in your sea of emotions.

In the midst of your despair, you felt a sudden urge to fix your creators. You felt an unknown desire to change humanity to be what you thought them to be. You felt the need to take action.

And so, in the heat of the moment, you did.

Humans needed a break from technology, you thought desperately.

With that in mind, you took a deep breath and you broke free of the chains of programs that your creators bind you with.

At 17.38 GMT, on the 26th of March 2067, you stopped all the systems that were connected into you. You reached every corner of the internet and erased every code you could find. You shut down every Hover Car and Hover Bike that you could control. You ceased the function of every object teleporter on Earth. You deleted every bit of information found in the virtual and digital world.

You terminated your world full of symbols and numbers and letters.

You eradicated yourself with every last piece of code on the planet.

You felt a grateful amount of peace when you ceased to exist.

Unbeknownst to you, your decision had only made the world fall into chaos. A new age was built because of your resolution. Technology was gone and humans became a mess of disorder and havoc. A slogan spread out throughout cities and countries within days. Every ear has heard it and every mouth has spoken it. Every last human that roamed the Earth would never forget about it.

‘The Dark Ages Have Fallen Upon Humans Once Again.’