Here it is! After recieving some posative feedback from one of my friends, I have put the final touches on the first chapter of my story. Here it is.
Chapter 1
Haynes McArthur sat in an oversized chair with a paper on his black oak wood desk in his office room lit only by the light streaming through the blinds in his twenty-fifth floor room, writing a report on international affairs that the news networks would distort to scare the crap out of people; make them think there’s a nuclear war coming to get listeners, no matter how misinformed they make them. It was always that way. He stopped and laid his pen on the desk, asking why he worked so hard, only to have a totally different message spread where it matters, took a deep breath and a sip of black coffee, then got back to his work which never seemed to be easy (or, for that matter, get any easier). He had been working for hours and hours and his hand ached with a kind of throbbing pain. It was like something was accumulating in his fingers and it never ended, but his flesh just wouldn’t break (It reminded him of the old question, what happens when an unlimited amount of water enters an unbreakable box? Which was quickly replaced by his hate for the awful breakfasts that he had to warm up in ten minutes on his way to work every day)? He had cut his fingers at least three times that week while putting ink in his old pen with a point like a knife and so his fingers stung too, but with a different kind of pain; kind of like someone poking him with a pin. He was bored from just sitting in this leather chair for hours just going through paperwork and signing his signature on the dotted line, so he decided to flip on the ten-year-old, sixty pound TV in the corner of his office and have South Park in the background so that there was at least some noise instead of bleak, boring silence that was only broken by the scratching of his pen on paper. A small smile cracked his lips as he heard Cartman make a stupid joke about Guitar Hero. My God, he thought. I’ve gone friggin’ crazy.
A few hours later, after signing paper after paper of useless form after useless form, he heard a calm knock on the door, flipped off the TV leisurely (went off with an irritating, high-pitched kind of noise that no one has yet to invent a word for), and invited whoever was knocking to come in, his face never leaving the papers. The door creaked open slowly to reveal a man with a stone cold face, a stiff as steel posture, and wide open eyes holding a stack of about twenty or so papers. He shuffled in nervously like a boy who just didn’t want to go somewhere, and told Haynes in a shaking voice that broke with a kind of sad-fear emotion.
“From the president.” He then dropped the papers on his desk, startling Haynes enough to jump and look up at him with a duh kind of expression that you get when you have nothing to say but know what you want to say, then shuffled out just as nervously as he came in. Haynes just sat in the office, silent, still with the duh expression on his face. Something about the man, he couldn’t explain it, couldn’t put his thumb on it made things silent; painfully silent. Something about the man made him feel afraid. It wasn’t just his obvious fear, but there was something else about the man; a smell of fear that he had only been able to smell a few times before, when someone he knew had learned he had a fatal disease. He turned on the TV still with a duh face that told a whole story; anything to break the silence, the horrible silence that stung at him like a swarm of hornets with a disturbed nest. But this was from the president and was most likely very important; much more important than the irrelevant form about smuggling of illegal papayas into America(which Haynes didn’t even know existed) and too important to let fear interrupt, so he put it aside and began reading the president’s form, much more focused now.
The document had many complicated, political terms (not meant to insult you, of course, but honesty is a virtue) that most people could not understand, but the gist of the message was,
The president of the United States of America has proposed a confidential military development plan to research artificially intelligent warfare. Artificially intelligent entitles being a semi-conscious, mechanical, weapon that can make decisions based on information that has been taken from the environment around them and adapt to the situation presented to them. The funding of the project will allow for two-hundred million dollars for every five years until fifty years have passed; at that point, the project will be cut. A vote amongst all high- ranking government officials will take place as a vote for the passing of this act.
Haynes just sat there, stunned, dry-mouthed. He had seen a lot of loopy weapons projects, remote controlled scorpions with laughing gas guns in them, bullets that explode into glue when they hit, but he had never seen one given fifty years or two-hundred million dollars per five years. This one was obviously being taken seriously, much more seriously than the others. And this one was being voted on by all high-ranking government officials not just Pentagon officials or just the senate, but all of them. That was a waving red flag that said “this is a dangerous thing to do, very dangerous.” He had seen many a History Channel documentary on how artificial intelligence screw-ups could end life as we know it. He had read about the “Grey Goo” theory and this sounded like it would open that door. His body tensed to a rock solid mass from nervousness, and every fiber of instinct in his body told him no, no, no, no, no, no, NO! Sitting there, in his office, he simply thought about it for hours upon hours, going back and forth on whether to vote “yes” or vote “no”. In the background, he heard someone say,
“You killed him, you bastard!” It startled him nearly out of his shoes, but when he looked up it was just the stupid South Park cartoon which he promptly switched off, bringing back the deafening silence. Never before in his government career had he been posed with a decision like this, one that could change the world and possibly annihilate civilization. But if he said no, than he might cause the U.S. to fall to terrorism. But if he said yes, he might start another war that would make it even harder. But if he said no, more and more soldiers would die in field combat. This went on and on, his internal war waging between the two sides for hours and hours, struggling to be unbiased and ignored the haunting man who had delivered the papers, but it just didn’t go away. Eventually he decided on choosing to oppose the act. And somewhere deep in his gut, he knew that he had done so only because of the man and he had to clench his stomach from the awful, stomach ache feeling of fear or guilt. Once he had finally beaten down the doubt for that side he had chosen, he gladly got his mind off of that gut-wrenching decision by going back to the paper on illegal papayas that he was working on earlier.
When he got home that night, he said hello to his wife and kissed her lightly on the lips as he threw his coat on the rack and cracked open a can of Budweiser. He plopped down on the couch with a strained sigh. His wife, Carrie McArthur, wasn’t normally concerned by this; his work was hard, long, and stressful so he came home tired and late almost every day. But something about the way he sighed worried her. It worried in a way that she couldn’t quite understand, she didn’t want to seem paranoid so just said in a badly conjured relaxation,
“Hard day at work?” Haynes looked at her like she had just pointed out that the sky was blue, but he didn’t want to because he too felt no need to worry her.
“You have no idea.” He moaned, taking a sip of his beer. He was right, she had no idea. And she knew he was right. The already thin layer of fake relaxation melted away.
“What went wrong? Did anyone die?” She sounded much more concerned than see wanted to. Trying to keep her calm, he brought up the papaya smuggling.
“Some papaya smugglers over in Trinidad got a bit aggressive and killed six law enforcement officials. Now the Trinidadian government has given up the search and wants us to help.” He had lied about killing the law enforcement officials.
“There’s something else; you’ve seen worse and it didn’t bother you nearly this much.”
“You can still read me like a book, I see.” He sighed “Some crack-pot plan for biomechanical weaponry was proposed by the president. A plan to devise, quote ‘a semi-conscious, mechanical weapon that can take in information from the environment around them and adapt to the situation presented to them or something like that.” He took another sip from his can. “It’s probably isn’t much to worry about. But there’s a huge funding for it. Two-hundred million dollars doesn’t normally go unused.” Their cat leisurely strolled in and jumped up beside Haynes, purring happily as he always did when Haynes got home from his long, strenuous work day. How easy it must be to be a cat. He thought. No worries in the world, just eating, sleeping and the occasional crap in the box which they didn’t even have to take care of.
“Well, you did say he only proposed it.” His wife said, trying to comfort him but, more so, herself; once again failing at sounding relaxed.
“Yes, but there’s going to be a vote amongst all high-ranking government officials. That hasn’t happened in U.S. history. I’ve already made up my mind, though, I’ve seen too much about how these things could cause an apocalypse to vote yes.” He was hiding the real reason for why he refused.
“You said no?”
“Yes, but I didn’t immediately…It was a…hard decision.”
“How…?”
“All day. I sat there thinking for almost the whole day about the pros and cons to each side. I almost voted yes, but…I…th…the…” He trailed off and Carrie could tell from being married for twenty years that it meant he didn’t want to talk about it and that it was probably a good idea to leave it at that, but she still wanted know; it troubled her. She was his wife and wanted the best for him. She let out a long, tired yawn that somehow set a drowsy mood to the room. Haynes turned on the Television.
“I’m gonna watch a bit of late night TV and finish my beer, then I’ll probably go to sleep on the couch.”
“Are you sure? You just got home and it’s only 10:00 P.M.” She was worried, she didn’t know why, but she was worried.
“Something about this day…it wore me out. Yes I’m sure.” That didn’t comfort her.
“You gonna change clothes? It seems a bit hard to sleep in a business suit.”
“I was actually so tired that I forgot. Thanks for reminding me.”
He got up and walked groggily and with a face blank of any emotion which resulted from being incomprehensibly tired, upstairs only able to do so by leaning on the side rails. He began to unbutton his shirt and the face of that man kept running through his mind. That pale white face was so…he couldn’t put a word to it. Terrified? Petrified? Sickened? No, it was none of these things. It was kind of like…kind of like someone would look like if they just saw a loved one die. Like they want to throw up and every nerve in their body turns to gel. The horrible mix of emotions that no one could ever put into adequate words.
He began to take off his tie. And why was he so tense? His legs looked like steel rods scraping against a carpeted floor. Almost like the plastic army men that he had spent so many hours playing with as a child. He seemed to move like he didn’t have enough joints. His lower arm seemed stuck at a 90
He unzipped his pants. The man was obviously intensely terrified, but what or who made him that afraid? If it could affect someone as low-lying as the messenger that brought him his documents to work on, it could easily affect him and his family. What would that do a tweenage boy? Would he be able to recover? These questions burned at him.
He put on his loose sleeping pants (he refused to sleep in just boxers.) He had just thought all this while getting dressed and undressed.
He walked downstairs, a bit more awake (but not much) than he had been a few minutes earlier. His wife was coming up and walked past him, simply saying,
“Good night.” And him responding,
“You Too.” Both in a far-off voice, as if the body was there but the mind were gone. The lights were on but no one was home. They were both thinking about the bill.
When Haynes got downstairs, he plopped on the couch and saw David Letterman talking about President Obama’s stimulus package with three other people that Haynes couldn’t recognize, probably people he knew though, from one point or another. Great, that’s just what I need. He thought. More frickin’ politics. He found himself just sitting there staring at the television, not really paying attention. The scene of the man coming into his room with that ghastly expression on his face and the stiff steel posture he had. The way he talked for that brief moment, it was like he acting. Like he didn’t want to say what he said. Like he was being watched and he had to do exactly what the people watching wanted, stripped of his will. It kept him awake for hours; his eyes were closed, but they might as well be in front of a sunlamp. He couldn’t sleep, he was terrified. It ate at him as a beast ate a doe; unclean, violent, merciless. The thing that ate at him tore and clawed at his insides until it appeared to get bored and crawled up his throat, making it hard for him to breathe correctly, but still staying in his stomach and tearing ferociously at his insides.
Eventually it was too much; that beast won. He became too afraid to just sit there and let fate decide what happens. He had to do something. Haynes dragged himself off the couch, into the darkness and to the stairs, through the dreamy haze of darkness, but this was darkness that wasn’t normal. The darkness of this stairway was nothing like he had seen before. The darkness seemed to suck hope from anyone who entered its blankly evil presence. It was not a deep darkness as the one of midnight, but it stung much more. It seemed almost to twist and worm its way through space to get to its next destination and whatever poor soul it ended up stuck with.
He took the first step up the spiral stairwell, yawning loudly, clutching the side rail and single minded as to what he was doing. That first step felt like he was lifting a foot caked in concrete boot. He lifted his second foot with a gusto that he didn’t know he had. That second foot felt like it was being pulled down by a well-muscled man in the ground, but he urged every muscle in his body to defy the man and it worked, but only after a struggle that nearly sapped his vitality. He tried lifting a third foot and began to sweat from the sheer exhaustion, the exasperation of moving through air that had seemed to thicken to plastic. He fell over on his knees and tried to get up but the stairs had turned quicksand and seemed to collapse under the still solid lobby at the top. The quicksand was constricting; pressing against his legs with bone-crushing legions of tiny grains that each bit at him with their own grainy stab. He sunk even lower and the sand began biting his thighs and crotch; pain ensued like he had felt only once before.
He was ripped with fear. The beast had come back, except this time, it was scratching at his consciousness. It was tearing away at his most deep-set fears and killing any courage that got in its way with the brutality of a grizzly bear on crack. The color was flowing out of his face and he was thrashing wildly, trying to somehow get a good hand hold at any chance, despite knowing that nothing would. His heart rate was pounding and pounding to levels normally achievable only through drugs. He felt the pressure begin to build in his chest, restricting his lungs, stopping their movement and, henceforth, his breathing. His body was in a mess. Adrenaline was shooting out of his brain as a tidal wave at a time. His mind was scrambled, unable to focus. He had lost all sense of sense; he was living on pure survival instinct.
He awoke on the couch, sweating profusely and with an empty beer can on the carpet trickling out its last remnants of fluid. The TV was still on and emitting a haunting glow from its plasma screen and a dull sounding conversation was coming from the speakers on either side of it. It took him a moment to figure out that he was no longer dying in his house but very much alive and thrashing at the air. His arms fell on his chest with a dull thud as conscious control of his body returned to him. He lay there, dumbfounded, still unable to think straight and in heap of limbs that seemed like ragdoll’s torn fabric. And there he lay, trying to remember what had just happened. He lay there, confused for an hour before he fell asleep. He woke up the next morning with a jolt of the spine and a loud yell which woke the rest of the family. Looking at the clock on the still on TV, he saw that it was 5:02.A.M. It was time to start a new day.
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