Vita Mutor

I stare at myself in the mirror, my hands sliding across the soft creases in the fabric of my dress. I chose something simple, something that would allow me to seem unassuming, harmless even. I need to look like someone he can trust. My hair is pulled back into a tight low bun at the nape of my neck and slicked back with hairspray, not a hair out of place.

My eyes drift in the mirror to the dresser standing behind me where a necklace hangs from a brown rusted stand. I turn around and reach out, letting my fingers glide along the dull golden chain. At the end of the chain is a heart-shaped locket, inside of which I know I’ll find a faded picture that I haven’t allowed myself to look at in years.

I close my eyes, taking a deep inhale of breath and holding it in for several seconds before exhaling, a trick I once learned long ago to deal with anxiety. I need to come across as confident if this is going to work. There is no room for error, no second chances to be given if I mess this up; I have one shot and one only. I slip on my black pumps and take one final glance at a woman I hardly recognize in the mirror before walking out the front door.

It’s been two years. Two years since the world ended – or what the world used to be, anyway. Two years of trying to make sense of it all. Two years of planning.

Two years ago, there was an outbreak. Not the kind you see in most Blockbuster post-apocalyptic zombie movies, or the kind that spreads deadly disease across the globe. This was the technological kind, the kind that can’t be hidden from or fought against with firearms or medicine. This new era’s enemy can’t be outrun or outsmarted. There is no cure – because there are no opportunities given to find or create one. He makes sure of that.

It started with a man: Edon Mafis. With striking good looks and a clever mind, Mafis took the world by storm in 2055 as the youngest CEO of the largest artificial intelligence company in the world, Vita Mutor. He spoke long and often about how his technology was going to change things, feeding the world fables of the prosperity he promised to bring. Less poverty. Eradicated homelessness. No more unnecessary hunger or disease. People described him as passionate; his callous nature was regarded as candor, his ruthlessness written off as ambition. He was good at that, good at convincing others to trust him.

It happened slowly at first, then all at once. The technology created by Vita Mutor became commonplace; businesses, hospitals and schools were all outfitted with high-tech A.I. systems attached to the promise of improvements – improvements in the economy, in the human lifespan, in academic performance. With this kind of technology, anything was possible - and who were we to question something like that?

It wasn’t long before Vita Mutor went global. Eventually, Mafis managed to secure himself a private meeting with the Secretary General of the United Nations, where the two men shook hands and agreed to take Vita Mutor worldwide. The beginning of the end.

There were protests. Once the public got wind that this new A.I. was to be implemented into their homes, into every home, all hell broke loose. Rioters took to the streets, marching and chanting loudly into the long hours of the night. Protestors camped outside of Vita Mutor’s doors, promising to an unhearing Mafis that bad things would come to him if he didn’t put a stop to this blatant invasion of privacy.

One early morning, the doors of Vita Mutor finally opened. Mafis walked out, eyeing the protestors carefully before inviting them inside. “Come in,” he said. “Let me hear you.” And so they went, the heavy glass doors swinging closed behind them as they trailed in after one another, eager to finally voice their concerns to someone who had the power, real power, to fix it. They were hopeful, not just in their arguments but in Mafis himself. They believed he would listen, believed that he could be reasoned with. It was the last time they were seen alive. When the doors opened again a week later, the real nightmare began.

What walked out of Vita Mutor was inhuman. The familiar faces of those who had been invited in just a week earlier met those of their horrified loved ones, wives and husbands and sons and daughters who'd been holding their breath awaiting their safe return, hoping for good news. The lives that had once existed behind the robotic eyes staring back at them were gone, replaced by the mutant hybrid of human and machinery that stood before them: flesh and vein and artery melded together with metal and intricately wired circuitry.

Mafis walked out beside his newest creations, proudly named Finis Mundos – the end of worlds. With a smile on his face, the man who had once charmed millions stood before us and announced that the world had entered a new age, one dominated by only the most intelligent creatures. Evolution has been given an upgrade, he'd said. Only the smart can survive.

It took six months for Mafis and his machines to take over the country, another four to conquer the rest of the world. Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives stolen, replaced by lifeless, mutated versions of people that had once existed. Mafis was right; we had entered a new age, whether we liked it or not.

It’s been two years.

I walk out my front door, not surprised to see the sleek black car already sitting at the edge of my driveway. I turn around to lock the door, though I know there’s no point; privacy is a long-forgotten luxury that we no longer have, locking the door just another feeble attempt at holding onto a world that no longer exists. I walk down my driveway, the sharp clicking of my heels reverberating through me. The door opens, as I expect it to, but no one gets out. I climb into the back of the car, shutting the door behind me and running my hands over my dress again. He waits.

I turn to my right to finally meet his eyes, plastering a soft smile on my face, hoping it’s believable. Bright blue eyes stare back at me, his gaze boring into me, intense and questioning. I can tell he doesn't trust me. Finally, he returns my smile, placing a hand on my lap and telling the driver to go.

I do my best not to shudder at his touch, but I can’t help it. This man, the one who had ripped everything out from under me. The man responsible for all the tragedy that had battered the world. He looks over at me again, eyeing me curiously, a wall up between us that’s veiling the trust I know I’ll have to earn from him. That’s okay. I came prepared.

“Ready?” he asks me, squeezing my hand in a gesture that I know is meant to come across as intimidating rather than comforting. A warning.

“Yup,” I reply, my smile genuine this time. I’m ready.