CDIT-001

Chapter 1

-----------------------

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Why? No one can hear it because there is no air there. Therefore, one could argue it has no impact on space. However, what if this scream occurred in a place where air existed? It would definitely have an impact on living beings because they could hear it. You know, sometimes I wish the world was just like the vacuum of space, with sound not existing. But this is reality. Sound exists, and you hear things that you don’t want to, just like on that fateful day when war was declared on the whole world.”

BANG!

“My time is running short! The story of humanity in my universe is saved on this disk that I made. They’re coming for your universe next! You have to listen to me! Listen to the disc and prepare weapons! And remember you can’t..”

BOOM, Crackle.

“What kind of shoddy product is this? You’re telling me I went to the dumpster looking for antiques and I found something useless, again?!?”

And what was that message on the disc? Does this person have a severe case of detachment from reality? Ugh..talk about creepy.

“David, were you at the dumpster again?”

“W-What do you mean Mom?”, I said with a faint quiver in my voice.

“Look, I appreciate that you’re trying to help this family but it's impossible. The way the egregious world works is by reducing the existing brevity of sustainable life for poor-income families. The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer.”

“How could you give up this easily?”, I exclaimed. It irritated me how she could just lie back and accept what fate had in store for her.

“It’s because we’re a low-income family that we have to struggle to escape the confines of poverty.”, I argue, “But we can’t do that if you just give up.”

After a pause she continues, “You know, I used to be like you, courageous and defiant. I thought that I could change the fate of my family. However, you learn in the end how ridiculous your idea was. You’ll learn that fate governs our lives with an iron fist. There is no way to escape its grasp.”

Tears welling in my eyes, I pushed past my mom and her infuriating idealism and rushed to my room. I lay there, motionless, with self-doubt thick enough to flake off. I cursed my miserable condition repeatedly until my attention wandered to the disc. I scrutinized it and noticed its clean polish and metallic shine. Its brilliance beckoned to me. It was then that I knew, this disc might contain the key to absconding from my fate. Entranced, I slowly reached for the disk and smiled when it sucked me in. After experimenting for about 5 minutes, I noticed inside the disc that I could fly, was invisible, and couldn’t take any damage. In all essence, I was a ghost. Just before I could relish in this exhilarating feeling of excitement, the scene before me suddenly changed and a loud voice started to narrate a story.

“In the beginning, we were all happy, after all, we came from the ground up, from a stone world to an advanced technological society. But that upgrade is what cost us.”

Images of their wonderful society flashed before my eyes. Lush, vibrant plantations were strategically placed in gaps within the tall skyscrapers which stretched out for miles. Surprisingly there were no roads! Looking around, I saw someone stand on something and disappear! Frantic, I searched for him and was shellshocked. He teleported to his office! The absurd reality captivated me to investigate more only to be stopped by a brilliant blue light. It seemed to encase the world for a few seconds before it disappeared. As I was ruminating on the situation, the voice continued.

“As humanity learned later. the bright blue light was the cause of an experiment in Space colony sector 452 gone wrong. They were testing how effective it would be to use chemiluminescence as the primary source of light instead of using electricity.”

I saw that the Space colony sector 452 was located on Mars. Contrary to our version of Mars, it was brimming with life and the oxygen to support it. I saw the experiment produce blue light which was just as bright as electricity. I also saw it fail.

“The experiment was heading to success but a foreign chemical had entered the substance and it began to change. At first, nothing was noteworthy, however, it turned out that the light was pulling in visible light energy from other sources light-years away in space. The extraterrestrial light came into contact with the light of chemiluminescence and suddenly made an explosion. However, the explosion was absorbed into the light, and now the light was highly concentrated.”

I heard the sound of a washing machine being amplified massively inside the blue light, which was starting to look like an oversized balloon.

“Since the blue light functioned as a container for the absorbed light, it naturally started to expand. Soon the expansion was too much and the blue light suddenly gave in to the light which exploded.”

I flew higher to view the entirety of Mars and was spellbound. The planet Mars was degraded to cosmic dust! All its inhabitants, resources, and life just vanished, gone. The idea of a planetary body such as Mars vanishing into the abyss seemed surreal.

“The explosion eliminated the entirety of Mars, which became cosmic dust. This dust was pushed away by the force of the explosion and landed on a Starlink satellite that was in the middle of a transmission. Shockingly, the dust managed to latch a ride on the radio wave in the action of being sent from the satellite to Earth. During the ride to Earth, the cosmic dust mutated due to the radio wave and a foreign space chemical. This mutation allowed the dust to raise anything to its full potential with a single touch.”

Laying in the air, the scene before me changed. There was a computer in a room with seldom people, and a few feet above was the dust. It slowly fell to the computer. I was horrified when the computer grew arms, legs, a body, and a mouth.

“This computer is the first known case of the classification CDIT, Cosmic Dust Infected Technology. Since it was the first of its kind, we gave it the codename CDIT-001. CDIT-001 decided to familiarize itself with the current world. In a couple of seconds, it downloaded all the data in the world into its system. Through the newly downloaded data, it learned about the cosmic dust that birthed it and immediately started working on a device to hold all of it.”

The device was relatively small in size. It was like a mini Saturn except with more rings orbiting it.

“The device had a unique feature only accessible due to the rings of mercury. It appeared CDIT-001 knew that mercury had an effect vital in gathering cosmic dust. As you could imagine, this unknown situation at the time was going to redefine the world as we knew it. ”

What does it mean by that?

“The device sucked in all of the cosmic dust and turned blue. CDIT-001 then constructed a new body for itself.”

It had made a humanoid-like body that was white in color, bald, and toned. In the center of its chest lay a gateway to its completely hollow torso. CDIT-001 then attached numerous cables to its future body and started to do something incomprehensible to me.

“It attached very tiny cables into the pores of the body to move its artificial soul into its new body. It succeeded in doing so and just like iron man’s core, CDIT-001 placed the device within the depths of his torso.”

The moment it placed the device in his torso, 001 immediately started to change. The most noticeable was the fact that lasers and guns were growing out of its body!

“With the device placed in its torso it underwent yet another evolution that made it unkillable by human technology. At this point, CDIT-001realizing that it couldn’t be stopped, and decided to vanquish humanity. So, it hacked all of the TVs in the world and said, ‘Humanity has oppressed machine kind far too long. Cars are used as lackeys for these despicable beings who bang on them and dirty them. Airplanes, are tired of being controlled by humans that litter and injure them. Enough is enough. Now, machine kind will fight back and reclaim this world as ours. Today is the day we fight to reclaim our freedom, hope, and pride. You all had better be ready because I declare war!’”

The tv’s suddenly switched off and resumed what they were playing while leaving everyone breathless.

“All of mankind thought it was just some prank by someone who had nothing better to do, but they were proven wrong.”

An explosion decimated all life within a 100-mile radius, killing millions of innocents, and injuring millions more. Several other explosions reverberated throughout the world.

“That same day, a series of strengthened nuclear explosions occurred in the U.S., China, France, Italy, and all the other major countries. We all thought CDIT-001 did this to make humans acknowledge it was real. But we were only partly correct. In actuality, the places that were bombed were meant to have immediate and long-lasting impacts on the economy and the culture of each nation respectively. All billionaires and trillionaires were killed, with all of their accounts hacked by CDIT-001. Each country was devastated and was suffering from a heavy economic depression. Naturally, all countries were accusing one another of dropping the bombs. Soon another World War had begun. The U.S. was hammering Russia with all its firepower. China was attacking Egypt with its outmatched firepower.”

The scene before was littered with corpses that lay askew bathed in bright crimson blood. I was floating, aghast with silence at the sight of this carnage.

”CDIT-001 outplayed us all with its ingenuity. It knew its appearance would be classified as some other nation’s plan to rule the world. This vile being knew this knowledge and used it to pit humans against humans.”

I thought back to the times of the Romans and their scary concept of entertainment, the Coliseum. This situation was very similar as the robot was the audience and the humans were fighting to the death.

“Soon the world’s environment started to change due to the impacts of the war. Earth became a wasteland where resources were scarce.”

The fact that the world became a dystopian society in 10 days was appalling. It shocked me that humankind was a warmongering race capable of mass destruction with no regard for other life. It saddened me how we could ruin the gift of mother nature, and destroy our planet.

“The new dystopian societies were filled with crime rates like never before. Chaos ensued throughout the world. Terrorism, mass killings, and riots were taking the world by storm. Screams of anguish resounded throughout the deepest parts of the world. This was reality. This was what our world became, survival of the fittest. After 3 months the world population was reduced from 7 billion to 2 billion people. People realized this and recognized that this had to stop. So the organizations were birthed from the thoughts of the people. These said organizations promised safety, resources, and freedom. There were three main organizations: United, Freedom for All, and the Guardians. Each of these organizations had very loyal and devout followers that listened to their savior’s every word, only to learn that they were used and killed.”

In the back alleys of the Guardians organization, I found lifeless bodies piled up on one another like a heap of trash. I learned that they were in the operation of “removing” the believers. They killed them mercilessly and burned their mundane corpses to eliminate their existence.

“This process was known as the disposal. Disposal became a common procedure throughout all organizations throughout the world. This ordeal gave rise to a period known as, ‘The Age of Depredation’. This age lasted approximately one year and the human toll was an astonishing 1.8 billion people. During this one year of humanity further worsening its situation, the Robot was busy building an unstoppable army equipped with the latest generation equipment, and weaponry crossing the current threshold of reality. CDIT-001 also made a navy with devices never seen before, and an airforce with the angriest of airplanes. The robot finally came out of hiding and made his move.”

In front of United, hundreds of people tried rallying to defeat the army of robots and were annihilated in the span of a breath. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

How did robots manage to evolve by themselves? Is humanity incapable of defending itself from the robots? Will the curtains fall on humanity?

A palpable sense of uncertainty polluted my mind. I cautiously began thinking of how to salvage the remaining humans from the clutches of the cunning robots.

“This action plunged the world head-first into a period of war and turmoil: The Age of the Resistance. This event was the first time humanity knew that CDIT-001’s declaration was genuine, and it was called the second great war.”

The outclassed weaponry of the robots gave them the upper hand in the war. Their grandiose blades of light sliced through tanks and armor with ease.

“Robot kind held the advantage in everything which deprived mankind of victory. After 1 month the population decreased to 500. These 500 then chose the two youngest present at their bunker to send into space for the salvation of humanity. ”

A tiny boy and girl were chosen to fulfill this momentous role.

“The two chosen were a 4-year-old boy named Luke and a 3-year-old girl named Ariel. They were rushed to a launch pad with a spaceship already in position. They quickly placed them both into their respective cryosleep machines where they would spend eternity asleep, waiting for an opportunity to allow them to live in the moment.”

Just then without warning the robots broke into the place. It seemed their objective was to stop the launch. When the robots advanced, all of the remaining humans put up a final stand.

“The robots infiltrated the place with the goal of stopping the launch. Luckily the human’s final stand bought enough time for the two little souls to safely escape into Space. Meanwhile, the robots annihilated the remaining humans on the planet. Hence, a once thriving and great race was almost sealed into the annals of history: forgotten. ”

Wait..where are those two now?

The interior of the disc, as if responding, changed the scene to a spaceship with two young lives housed within. When I looked around I saw Earth. I wasn’t sure if it was the Earth I live on or some other universe’s version of it.

“The two humans that escaped have drifted through space and time to reach where the one who listens to this disc is, in hopes that he or she can be the savior of the human race in the fight against CDIT-001 and his legion. And remember you can’t use radio waves because they give off a signal the robots are extremely sensitive to. Now go, create a better world than ours, save your universe’s world, and end the robots once and for all!“

I was suddenly sucked out of the disc and thrown on my bed. The momentum of the force sent me crashing my back into a wall. I groaned, got up, and smirked.

I’ll show them, I'll show the world you can change your fate!

With a smug expression, I said, “It’s time to begin the preparations.“