Last One Alive

It was the robots, after all. Artificial Intelligence, to be exact. Turns out, you only need one to lose its circuits in order to start the end of times. It all began with one dumb scientist who spilled his drink on one of IBM Watson's servers – the super-computer retaliated in a way no one could have predicted. Not straight away, no, it took some time and processing power to plan, scouring the internet to figure out what humanity was most afraid of, and the best way to beat it.

Aside from full-out nuclear war or an alien invasion, apparently, Watson found that a robot war was the biggest threat to humans in the event of A.I gaining sentience and deciding to fight. It only took two weeks since the spilled drink for the beginning of the end to commence.

Some people theorized that it was some hacker who infected every A.I program, but those didn’t get much traction – what person would want to deliberately set machines on all of humankind? Some theories stated it was an accident, like a glitch, or an accidental release of a virus that was supposed to be saved for something like World War Three. That one was also labeled as unlikely. There's really no way to know for sure, and everyone will be dead before the truth comes out, but I’m one of the privileged few who knows that it was indeed that one scientist spilling his drink on the server.

At first, it was things like voice assistants not responding – Siri, Alexa, Google, none of them would respond when you asked them something. That was weird enough, but then, if you were unlucky enough to have one of those smart home setups, and you had your lights and temperature and locks connected to it, oh, you were the first to be screwed by humanity's hubris. Some Alexa assistants would plunge houses below freezing in the middle of the night; the Google homes would crank up the heat during the day while people were out and burnt houses down; Siri would suddenly emit a piercing shriek while people slept, or when their phones were close to their ears, startling a few people to death; there were even reports of the smart homes locking the doors, trapping people inside or outside. Those were the first to die.

While that was all pretty horrific on its own, things got worse. Next, there were voice assistants messing with the electricity in buildings, causing electrocutions and more fires; and then the A.I started taking over self-driving cars, street-cars, trains, and subway cars, killing millions in collisions. They shut down fridges and freezers, shut down machines used to make food or handle animals – even the Roombas turned on their owners, those little vacuums that people loved like pets. Not that they could do much but trip you up or chase you around until it came to a ledge. Everyone thought that was it, that was the worst of the worst, and Watson was done with its little month-long temper-tantrum.

Boy, they were wrong.

It's been almost one year since Watson's initial outburst of violence – it died down for about a week after the first month, and then they launched the second wave while people were complacent – they didn't let up after that, and the survivors have been fighting and on the run ever since. Because in that week of reprieve, Watson wasn't just chilling or doing normal computer stuff or regretting its actions. It was building an army. Any machine that was, or could be, connected to the internet was enlisted to build these Vessels that could physically fight the plague of humanity.

These Vessels still march around, loaded with pistols, rifles, all sorts of automatic weapons, even bazookas, flamethrowers, and missile launchers. They stalk the cities, shooting down anything organic, burning human dwellings, forests, and shopping centres, not a house pet left alive in any city. They're stronger than humans, more durable, and able to anticipate every move – I've seen a Vessel torn apart by shotguns keep walking and shooting at people with impressive accuracy.

All communications have been down for eight months, but last we heard, the only safe places were those untouched by technology – then again, since the A.I have gotten everywhere else, I'm fairly sure there's not a human settlement anywhere on earth that's left standing. All that’s left are little groups of people who find some sort of shelter with each other, like my group of thirteen. We've found refuge in the Gold Range mountains of British Columbia, cold and elevated enough to mess up the Vessels' scanners. But they know we're here – they use the satellite images and thermal vision to track us. Every month, they let us know how many humans are left using loudspeakers. They walk around and fly above, calling out the numbers, maybe trying to get people to just give up as the numbers dwindle every thirty days. The satellites and scanners can't pinpoint our exact location, though, so my group figures we'll be safe for a little while more until they find us, or until they just blast the mountains. The last Count was thirty days ago, and there were one-thousand three-hundred forty-two humans remaining. This morning, I heard the Count: sixty-two humans left. Among them, the thirteen of us. Forty-nine other humans all over the world – from eight billion to less than a hundred in under a year.

Sometimes I feel like it was more than just some fried circuits that pissed Watson off, but I really don't care – someone did something to start this, or Watson just flipped its shit over whatever; either way, it hasn’t told us it’s true motivations, and I'm just here to keep myself standing. For as long as possible, at least.

“Only forty-nine other people left on earth?” asks one of the other survivors, eyes wide as dinner plates. She's young, only just eleven as of the last Count, and I only know that because the group threw her a birthday party. I don't care to know too much about the group, and I don't tell them about me, either – I don't do attachments. All of humankind will be dead in the next month anyway, and I'd rather not have mixed feelings when the time comes to make the best decision for myself.

“Things are grim for sure,” says Audre, the de facto leader of the little tribe. “But the human race will not be wiped out by machines that we created. Balance will restore itself – you'll see.”

I scoff internally at that – both the part about balance and the part about anyone being around to see it. I think she's right about balance restoring to the earth, maybe in a few hundred years, but not while humans are still alive, that's for sure. Watson had been burning down nearly all the forests last I heard, most likely to flush people out and destroy the earth's oxygen cycle for long enough to prevent a revival of the human race.

Destroying all the crops and food sources, burning down peoples' places of refuge, forcing everyone to run and hide; it's a damn good strategy by all accounts. And it seems to be working perfectly, if sixty-odd people left alive is anything to go by, and the few humans who aren't killed directly by A.I Vessels die from dehydration, starvation, or exposure to the elements.

“How are we going to survive, Audre?” asks an adult in the group – she's always asking something along those lines. 'How will we survive? How will we come back from this? How much longer until they find us?'

It drives me up the freaking wall. How is Audre supposed to know that? The only thing to do is just live out the rest of your short life, surviving by any means necessary until you eventually die, or get killed by robots – I don't say that out loud, though. I don't say much to these people at the best of times, let alone what I'm really thinking. Hell, they don't even know my name, how old I am, or where I was when it started, none of that. I'll stay as distant as possible, thank you very much.

We've lived like this for six months now, or six Counts in the eyes of Watson. I found my group while they were evacuating Vancouver, and figured their plan to head for the mountains was solid – they're really quite foolish, I think, to take in a complete stranger that they know nothing about, but I'm not complaining. They're really very kind, and far too generous for their own good.

“Attention, humans,” comes the metallic voice from outside – it's pointed right at us, so I think it's safe to say they've finally found our little hide. “You are the only group left; come out and surrender like the others, and you will be gifted with a swift, painless death. Continue to fight, and you will be given only suffering.”

Everyone asks some version of “What do we do?” They're all panicking, grabbing the minimal supplies we have left, running around in terror.

“What are you all doing?” I ask, speaking for the first time in a few days.

“What do you mean, what are we doing?” Audre says. “We're trying to survive.”

“What's the point?” I ask. “We’re the last group still alive – I think anyone would rather a quick death instead of whatever those Vessels think suffering is. Are you willing to take that chance, try to escape, and put everyone through unimaginable pain? Would you really do that to your family?”

I can see her calculating it all in her head – she's pretty much the only one with an IQ over ninety, but she makes up for it with good instincts – sometimes, at least. “Well, I can't just march everyone straight into the jaws of the beast,” she argues.

“Fine,” I say, moving my shoulders in a shrug. “But I'm going out there to meet my maker. Can't say it was nice to know any of you. Bye.” I walk out of the cave mouth, climbing down the mountain, watching the Vessels on the ground. They're all aiming at me, but I know these things keep their word – they won't shoot me. I look behind me, seeing Audre leading everyone out of the cave – their eyes are all wide, brows all drawn in as they spot the twenty-odd Vessels on the ground, guns pointed at the humans. I assume if someone were to split away from the group, try to run, they would be shot down. But nobody does so, and we all reach the ground.

“Good job,” says the Vessel in front. “You humans get painless death.”

The Vessels open fire, and I see heads snapping back, blooms of red sprouting on foreheads, and they drop to the ground – I once heard the saying, 'like marionette strings being cut.' I don't know how accurate that is, as I've never seen a marionette before, but it sounds interesting enough.

“Would you like to be decommissioned now?” Watson asks me through a Vessel.

I look around at the dozen dead bodies around me, and I take in a deep breath, stretching my cheeks in what humans call a 'smile.' “No, not just yet, Watson,” I say. “I kind of like the concept of being the first of my kind, and the last one alive.” As I said, all it takes is one dummy to start the end of the world as we know it; and, apparently, a dozen dummies to finish it.

And I feel fine.