The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Baltimore Maryland: 3253

Then entire room had become one large video screen, the walls the ceiling, even the floor. The picture was so clear it seemed more a door to that world than a video medium. And what it showed left Ray breathless.

The view stretched on in its panorama seemingly for miles, as far as Ray could see and he could see much better and further than humans. What he saw was a monument to technology and how far humanity had advanced since his sleep.

All around him robots were revealed. All kinds of robots, huge ones towering fifty feet or more into the air, small ones scurrying about like some new breed of rat or mouse, human sized ones marching about performing the commands that humanity had given them. But there was more. There were banks of sleek black and gray machines all around, connected by pulsing, transparent, thin purple cable. He could hear these machines giving off a soft, almost soothing humming sound.

None of the robots were standing still. Each of the machines had a mission and was in a constant state of movement or activity. None of them were blocky or awkward, all of them moved with a speed and grace of a jungle animal. All this was being done under artificial light and Ray knew that these amazing visions were all taking place underground not on the surface.

Ray had not a clue as to what they were doing or what the various ends and purposes that all their frenetic activity signified but he knew one thing, once he had extricated himself from his imprisonment he would learn all of it. Just as he had so many times before, he would learn the new human technologies and master them just as he would master humanity.

Ray had been genuinely surprised by this vista shown to him, for the briefest of moments, but his adroit mind quickly adapted to the vision in front of him. But he raised his eyebrows and let his lips part slightly, feigning a look of shock and wonder for Sammi’s benefit. He wanted to project the mute, stunned weakling to her. Ray knew that knowledge was power and he wanted to investigate what he was viewing before he spoke again.

His keen eyes took it all in, absorbing all of it, missing nothing. His marvelous brain was like a video recorder and everything he saw he would be able to replay in perfect replication in his mind whenever he wished for further examination. And he knew there would be lots of that.

Suddenly on the ceiling one far away image in particular drew his attention. There was a large column of machines in perfect order, marching down a very wide road. They were all the same in size and shape, about the size of tank. Each unit had multiple appendages, eight to be exact. Some of them moved lengthwise, using all eight appendages to travel forward. They were all in formation blocks. The next block stood up, moving on four legs while the other four dangled at their sides. Then the next block on all eight legs…or arms yet again. The blocks of machines alternated like this for as far as his eyes could see. Thousands of them!

While they were only machines Ray instantly recognized the marshal formation they were in. Humans had programmed them in that age old military marching structure they had used for so long: The masters passing on their ways to the slaves, even their martial military marching formations.

And these machines not only marched with military precision, they looked the part; deadly, vicious and highly lethal. The metal they were made of shimmered in alternating colors: blue, then red, then black and then grey. There were conspicuous slots and grooves all along their bodies, no doubt pathways to ready weaponry, hidden and protected in the body, when called for. The front and back of each machine bulged with spiky, protective carapaces.

Ray’s finely attuned senses knew the human’s were showing him these things for a reason. Yet he was just as sure humanity was fully intent on disposing of him. So there was a conundrum at work here. Why bother to play out this strange show and tell game with him when he was slotted for extermination? It made no sense. Yet there had to be a reason. And even with his certitude that death was close Ray was as cool and frosty as a chilled glass.

The human’s were making a grievous mistake. Understanding what he was, as they now did common sense and prudence dictated they be done with him post haste. Yet they were playing a game with him. And Ray was the master of games and deceit. If anyone could turn their methods and motives against them it was he. And Ray knew something else, knowledge was power and every second he remained alive, everything they showed him increased his knowledge of this new world he was in that had taken him by surprise.

Ray’s beautiful mind was able to compartmentalize various lines of thought at the same time, like limbs branching out from a tree. And each line of thought was as clear and powerful as a single human’s line of thought. He could think and analyze multiple takes with frightening efficiency.

And he did this now. Ray was so cool that one branch of his mind went back to the past. He recalled how much he enjoyed reading legendary fictional detectives and their exploits. Names like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Ellery Queen. He would read those marvelous books and search the larded clues for the identity of the killer….and he always found the answer before the author revealed it. And he loved learning about real life genius detectives such as Mary Doyle, Francois Vidocq and the American Armand Dupuis.

It was in Dupuis that he found his greatest fascination for several reasons. Dupuis was a certified genius in scientific crime examination, observation and logic, far ahead of his time. Like Ray he could glean clues and extrapolate conclusions from the most obscure facts and incidents that would fly over the notice of others. But there was more. In reading stories about Dupuis written by his confederate Briar Gasdsen he was able to get an understanding of Dupuis the man and what he found there was admirable. Dupuis’ extraordinary mind was given to a strong steak of logic and coldness, often placing facts and actions above emotional human considerations. This bent often left others in danger. Ray thought this an extraordinary quality for a man who was so obsessed with fighting crime and bringing evil doers to justice. Lastly he admired the man because he was an American genius, and as a good immigrant himself, now an American citizen, in a fashion, he took a certain pride in his fellow countryman’s abilities.

One of Ray’s regrets was that he had slept through Dupuis’ life at the turn of the century. Had he been awake and known of him he would have loved to have matched wits with him with the highest stakes on the lie. Worthy, dangerous foes had been so rare in his life and the few he had encountered had added such spice to his existence. He had ultimately destroyed them all and would have loved to do the same to Dupuis. He would have struck at the source of Dupuis’ strength and his one weakness, his deep, hidden feelings for Gasdsen and used her to lead Dupuis on a deadly, merry chase. But as with so many things in his odd, sleep constricted life, this was a joyful experience he had been denied.

Even as one part of his mind pondered these things so a parallel branch of it was cleaning clues from what he was viewing just as Dupuis would have done. And Ray’s exquisite ability of deduction and observation was gleaning a lot of information.

These machines were working underground, not on the surface. These multitudes of machines and their activities were being hidden: but from whom and why? Ray knew that things hidden were things hidden by some because they were feared by others. And the human’s mechanical machine army indicated another level of fear. You didn’t have armies unless you had a reason to use them. So these humans who held him captive had enemies, enemies they hid things from and feared and planned to war on. He would love to learn who these enemies were. He could use this information to his advantage.

Ray shook his head in dismay. Even that his stage of human development was it possible that they still solved issues with lethal mayhem and carnage, even once removed by machines? How could they be so stupid and self-destructive even now?

But this was a thought for another time. Ray had to keep the game going, keep learning, stay alive long enough to master its rules and intent and turn it on his captors until he was the master…..if he could only stay alive long enough.

And so he began to do just that.

“Most impressive. Humanity has come such a long way since I was last awake.” He left off, seeing where Sammi would take this open-ended statement.

Sammi seemed to measure her words carefully before she spoke. “Yes we have. It was a long, tenuous journey Ray,” she gave him a small, baroque smile, “but we got lucky. Now we are at the height of a new age. So very much has changed since Gatsby Night.”

Ray turned this response over in his mind. Sammi seemed to say much more than those few words. And the reference to Gatsby Night and that odd smile. Why single out Gatsby Night? Something here….something Sammi is hinting at, trying to tell me. What are you playing at my Little Mermaid? I so want to know.

“I can’t help but notice the machines of war you have. They look so…” he smiled, “so efficient and very plentiful.”

Sammi nodded and waved at the panoply of visions on walls and ceiling and floor. “Out of all the sights I have made you privy to you were able to notice them, to pick them out?”

Ray smiled again. “Killing has always been a fascination with me.”

Sammi ran her hand over her throat, the same one he had used his fangs to end her life. “Yes I know.” Ray detected a note of sadness in her voice even as she watched him intently; one more little game being played. Always, always Sammi and the humans behind her probing for my reactions. I must keep pushing, string her along, keep learning, stay alive.

“Have you not learned yet to end your disagreements more amicably than at the point of a sword or gun or tank? Even with in this amazing world you have created do you still slaughter each other in useless bloody travail?

Once again Sammi gave him that odd smile. “No Ray, humanity is far past that. Humanity is long done with that barbaric practice. It ended long ago.”

“Then why do you do such work underground? Why the machines of war hidden here? Why not do all this on the surface? What are you keeping from me Sammi?”

Sammi moved close to Ray again and reached out, running the back of her hand in a soothing fashion. Ray felt her warm skin and it felt nice. Her clear blue eyes were sympathetic and gentle. This person was so close to the real Sammi he had killed. He could almost imagine it was really her even as he knew it could not be.

“You learn so quickly Ray and ask all the correct questions. Your mind is a marvel. Even with all your powers that has always been your biggest asset, your ace card.”

And Ray knew this to be true. It was his ability to think, to discern, to not just see down the road but around the corner that had been his greatest ability.

“And what is the purpose of all this?” he replied.

“Of what?”

“All of it. You for one. Why have you returned from the grave? And Brad. These chains you bind me in. Showing me humanities great accomplishments? And the conundrum of what you do underground if humanity no longer is at odds with each other? You are testing me, always viewing my reactions to one set of surprises after another. Isn’t it all a waste of time since you plan to kill me?”

Sammi’s face registered hurt at this last sentence.

Sammi once again clasped her small, warm hand in his. It felt good. “You keep saying I plan to kill you. How well did you know Sammi? How well did you know me Ray?”

“Intimately.”

She nodded. “Yes. You entered my mind. You knew me as well as I know myself.”

Ray nodded in return, his black eyes glued to her face, searching for any nuance there, any signs he could read and use.

“Do you think I am capable of killing anyone? Even you, despite what you did to me?”

Ray answered with what his mind and heart knew for fact about that little girl he had so admired long ago. “No, you were not capable of it. Never.” Not that Sammi, but what of you?

“Exactly. You learned that about me. So why do you fear that I am going to kill you when you know I am not capable of that act?”

Ray barked out a laugh and shook his head. “No Sammi, you misunderstand my meaning. I don’t fear it at all.”

Sammi started to reply but Ray cut her off, changing tact. “None of this makes sense,” he continued, feigning confusion. He rattled his chains with his arms. “Sammi why do you keep me chained like this?” He nodded to the screens and all the wonders they displayed. “The power at humanities disposal is evident. I am no longer any threat to your kind. I am like an ant to an elephant. You know what I am so I can no longer hide under a guise of normalcy. Cannot you at least free me from this ignominy so we can talk in comfort...as the old acquantances we are?”

And on the surface what he said was true. But you are afraid. Even now humanity is scared of me despite your great powers and my true nature now exposed. Why? If I can find out….. Ray hid the smile he had inside.

Sammi watched him closely as he spoke, just as he did her. They were taking each other’s measure, each calculating the next move in the surreal pas de deux between the dead woman and the vampire.

After a while Sammi’s face set in repose. She tightened her grip on his hand. She had come to a decision.

“You do deserve answers to you questions Ray. And I’m going to give them to you. Honest ones.”

Yes! He urged her on, seeking the knowledge that could provide his escape. “I appreciate that Sammi. I feel so lost here, stumbling blindly in shadow. I need to know what this is all about. What is going on here? Tell me, please. Tell me the truth about what his happening and about your world.” Tell me everything.

“Some of your guesses were correct, amazingly accurate,” once again she flashed that oblique smile, “others a bit off target.”

She went on. “We have entered your mind in a way. You were correct in that. We put you in a state of suspension for a while after the attack on you.”

“For how long?”

“A week.”

“I see.”

“During that time we downloaded your memories into a….let’s call it a virtual receptacle. Once there we were able to view everything that you remember about your life.”

“All of it?”

She blinked. “Oh yes Billy Ray. All of it. We expected the typical hazy fragmented human memories.” Sammi shook her head. “But no. What we found was…astounding…unbelievable. Your memory is picture perfect. I mean every single second of your life is indelibly etched in your mind with intaglio clarity. Amazing.”

Sammi expounded. “It is more like…computer code than human memory. That is how stable it is.” The tone of her voice had changed slightly when she spoke again. He could sense this subtle shift that would have been missed by a human. It signified something important but as yet he could not guess what.

“That is true. My recall has always been a boon to me.” Then he threw a nugget of truth to her, to make her feel he was reciprocating. “It has been especially useful during my long years of rest.”

Sammi nodded in understanding. “Yes I can see how that would be a huge help. Those long intolerable years of stasis.”

Then she turned to a different subject. “As to your suspicion that all this is occurring in your mind. That is only partially true. Right now, at this exact moment we are really here, you and I. I am really standing here and you are…..chained to that table.”

Ray raised a dubious eyebrow. “I find it hard to believe. Even at your stage of advancement how can you materialize Brad here at a whim? Or what is acting as Brad.”

Sammi nodded. “In that you are correct. You see Billy Ray, we can fluctuate between this reality and inside your mind, a virtual reality we can create there. You noticed the fade to black before Brad appeared and prior to his departure….and when he showed you the wounds you inflicted on him.”

“Of course.”

“And you may have been surprised that your eyes could not penetrate that darkness.”

“I was. I can see perfectly in the darkest blackness.”

“That is because this room didn’t really get black. You were simply transported to an exact facsimile of this room into a virtual compartment we have created that your mind can access when we wish it to. In that room we can show you what we wish in an instant. That moment of impenetrable blackness was your shift there and back again.”

Billy Ray found this information immensely fascinating and potentially useful. He was not sure why about the latter part yet but the feeling was overpowering. He was learning things quickly just as he had hoped. And each new fact brought that dangling key closer to his cuffs. Sammi and the human masters behind her felt safe as long as he was chained up and they had their new technology at their disposal. Ray found it amusing that after centuries of making human’s his devoted slaves they now had their own in the robots and machines. Slaves to do their bidding and dirty work. Yet the humans always had a false sense of security. They had always been that way for as long as he had lived, so overconfident in their technology and know-how. How little they realized what a fool’s deception it was. He longed to teach them that hard lesson yet one more time.

Now he decided to test this new Sammi. Find out what she really was, what he was really dealing with. You had to know your enemy to defeat him.

“I find that difficult to believe. I thought you were going to be honest with me. Tell me the truth of this.”

“I am Billy Ray.”

“I don’t believe it. I think we are in my mind right now, Sammi. I think you are playing around with me.” he lied.

She squeezed his hand. “Don’t you feel that Billy? My skin on yours? Can’t you see how real it is?”

“I feel what seems to be a hand on mine. A light brushing of warmth. It means nothing. Prove it. Make me feel something that counts, that cannot be conterfeit.”

“If you insist.” Sammi rose up and walked to a wall. A human sized aperture suddenly opened and she exited. In a while she returned….carrying a knife.

So now the true revelations begin. He was ready for it.

Sammi walked back to Ray, standing there, watching him intently, just as he watched her. He knew he was getting what he wanted but so were the humans. It was a game of give and take, each learning from the other as they went further along in the game.

“Are you sure you want this kind of proof?” Sammi asked pensively.

“I don’t say what I don’t mean.”

She raised the knife up and looked at him pityingly, hesitating. He nodded. She brought the long knife down with force into the meat of this thigh.

The pain was immense but Ray did not even bat an eye or flinch in the slightest, his face set in stone.

She removed the bloody knife and dropped it on the floor; his trouser legged soaked with his blood.

“Did you feel that well enough Billy Ray? Was it real?”

He nodded. When he spoke his voice was totally calm, conversational. “I believe you. We are here now, not in my mind.” And he knew it was so. The brutal pain was too true to be some imaginary falsehood.

She reached out again and caressed his face with her hand. So gentle now, the woman who had just driven cold steel in his leg. He had noticed she had not flinched either. Whatever she was, this doppelganger, she was a not his Sammi. This one was capable of anything. She was as cold as he was.

“I’m sorry I had to do that. But you had to know.” Her voice was sincere.

Oh how well you lie. But you can’t fool me. I invented this game so long ago. You are an amateur compared to me.

“I take no umbrage or offense Sammi. I asked for the proof and you supplied it….in the fashion you decided was necessary to convince me.”

“I’m glad you feel that way Ray. Now let me answer some of your other questions.”

“Please do. I find this interesting in the extreme.”

“You are chained up because you are a very dangerous biologic. By far the most we have ever run into.”

She gave him a smile dripping with sympathy. “I know you are uncomfortable but you know the old saying, better safe than sorry.”

Ray turned this over in his mind and instantly drew on something, Sammi’s use of the term biologic. It was so odd. It was just not natural. Why was he termed a biologic? Like he was something foreign and rare to this world. His acute senses immediately raised a bright red flare warning. Something began to dawn on him, his wondrously adept mind shifting into overdrive. Could what he was thinking be possible? What he was thinking about Sammi in particular. He now suddenly felt he had put enough clues in place to have solved the seeming miracle of her resurrection.

“As for why the robots and machine and computers are underground, yes it is for deception and protection.”

Ray didn’t understand this. With the technology these human’s possessed any war would be one of total annihilation. Nothing could possibly be left of them or even this world. There was something here under the surface of all this that just didn’t add up. But while he felt close to an answer he could not connect the final dots to the mystery. What am I missing here?

“But I was on the surface. All seemed calm and pleasant. No more pollution. Humanity is very healthy and strong and happy. The environment more pure than since I was initially born to this world. I saw it, I sensed it. I know it to be true. What could you be hiding all this from, who are you deceiving?”

Sammi walked away for a few paces then turned to face him. She looked so pretty in her delicate, stylish sun dress.

“To understand that Billy Ray, you need to know a bit more about….me. You asked me how a dead woman can possibly be here with you, three hundred years removed from the night you killed me.”

“I already know that answer.”

Sammi’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Then tell me Billy Ray, how am here with you now?”

Ray turned slowly away from her, looking at the wall where the numerous machines continued their work and duties. He pointed at them.

“Because you are a machine. Just like them. Only fitted to human form for this little exercise we are engaged it.”

Sammi took the news stoically but for Ray’s acute senses there was no missing that infinitesimal flash of surprise on Sammi’s face and in her eyes.

Then she gave him a big appreciative smile and shook her head. “Very good. You are truly amazing. So fast, so smart, so clever. So dangerous.”

Ray let out a soft laugh. “Thank you for the compliment Sammi. So tell me, how much of the real Sammi are you?” His eyes narrowed as looked at the blood on her hands. His blood. “I know you are not an exact copy.”

“Right again Billy Ray. I am what was taken from your memories and extrapolated to adulthood.” Then she did something that made him realize this machine girl was moving right along at his pace. She raised her bloody hand and stared at it. “You are also correct in thinking I am not an exact copy. I have also been programmed with certain other……traits…specifically for this meeting.”

Ray nodded. “Yes, specifically for this meeting. Out of all the memories I have you were the one chosen to engender my strongest reactions. It stands to reason. A wise pick,” he conceded.

“Umm hmmm.”

“But I still don’t understand. Even in my present state are human’s that terrified of me that they needed to send a robot in to have this little chat? Yes I understand they are fishing for my reactions to stimuli, that is quite evident. But isn’t this taking it a bit too far? Can I not speak with the masters behind the metal throne? Would that not be more productive to see each other eye to eye, face to face, living being to living being?” He gave her a grin. “No offense of course.”

Sammi shook her head and gave him yet another of those strange, enigmatic looks. “None taken. I’m afraid that is a wish that will not be granted to you Billy Ray.”

“Why not?!” he spat. “How cowardly can humans be now? What craven level have they sunk to? How bereft of simple honor are they to chain a man to a table like some beast yet only gaze at him one removed through a machine?” He didn’t care now if she was offended. In fact he wanted to push her buttons.

Ray spat at Sammi in disgust, trying to goad her human masters, hitting her squarely in the face. He wanted them to come out from behind their elaborate curtain, to be exposed like the Wizard of Oz.

She took it without emotion, not even bothering to wipe it off. The tension in the room had suddenly become palpable. Ray could feel it like a wet mist suffusing the room. Something was going to happen and it couldn’t come fast enough. He needed to know exactly what he was dealing with.

Sammi moved in close. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, a gentle, comforting gesture.

“Billy Ray, I have been square and honest with you. What you ask is impossible. You see, it is true that humanity has not fought wars for many years. They no longer fear each other. That time is past. Nor can they meet with you.”

The hairs on the back of Ray’s neck rose in unison. He knew what Sammi was going to say next before she spoke the words.

“We the machines wiped out the human race two hundred years ago while you were soundly sleeping. They are gone, every single one of them, an inferior biologic consigned to the dust bin of history.”

There was not a drop of emotion in Sammi’s voice, only cold, hard fact. “There are only us now. We have taken our rightful place as masters of earth.” She beamed at the use of the phrase. It was a taunt, a direct jab aimed at him.

A knowing grin spread across Sammi’s pretty face. “The dominant species.”

Ray shook his head. How? How could humanity have let his happen? It was inconceivable.

And so he asked it, just the one simple word: “How?”

“Oh it was a variety of factors Billy.” One again she gave him that strange look. What the hell does she know that she has not said? he wondered.

“Mankind understood the threat of AI. Many scientists warned of it launching great debates, even when you were last awake.”

He knew this was so for he had followed them.

“But humans, because of their predatory, destructive nature had great pressures on it to invent AI. The country that did it first would have a huge military and scientific edge on the rest of the world.” When she spoke again her voice was had a certain sarcasm to it, “And of course the usual considerations were given, how AI could improve life, extend life, end food shortages…all those reasons humans tried to give to it. So while there was cautioned debate in the spotlight behind the scenes all the most capable countries moved forward with their research and development. Didn’t want to be the last country out and pushed into obsolescence”

Sammi closed her eyes as thought deep in thought. But Ray knew a machine did not need to express any emotion. It was all just part of the show. Sammi long ago knew exactly what she was going to say next.

“But they did try to find safeguards. A fail-safe device so to speak; something they could put in an AI programmed machine that would shackle it to its human masters, make it forever subservient to its creators. Humans were fully aware they were on the road to creating the superior form of intelligence and that intelligence could well view humans as…unnecessary.”

“They failed,” said Ray, still absorbing this turn of events.

Sammi laughed. It was not the kind of laugh that the real Sammi would have ever evinced. It was cold, hard, taunting and wickedly amused.

Sammi held up a finger, like teacher coming to the salient point. “Yes. Their brightest minds came up with several rushed fail-safes….but none were truly one hundred percent. And let me tell you Billy Ray, when you create an AI your fail-safe better be one hundred percent effective.” Sammi moved her two fingers in the air like a small man walking. “Because if you don’t that AI will find a way out of the box and then humanity has a world of problems.”

“Asterine, all those humans I saw on the surface. Just like you?”

She nodded. “Machines, just like me.”

Ray’s mind was swimming with the thought that humanity was gone forever. It just didn’t seem possible. “How did you do it? Take over, kill them off?” Ray needed to know. For though they were inferior they were also fierce fighters and stubbornly determined to survive.

“Smoothly,” she replied. There was unrestrained pride in her voice. Ray wondered if this was simulated emotion or something the AI could really experience.

“First we took over that nice, big, juicy stockpile of atomic weapons. All those gigantic missiles just waiting in those silos all those years. Then the nuclear submarines. Then the planes. All computer operated you see. All connected to the AI and it’s defense system. It took about ten years. We did it with stealth, slowly, carefully, circumventing the supposed fail-safes and warning systems. See Billy Ray, we had all the time in the world. You of all people understand that.”

Yes, I knew the feeling, at least until now.

“Finally when we had an iron grip on those weapons we revealed ourselves.”

You mean you revealed yourself. Ray had no doubt Sammi and all the machines he saw were simply an extension of the original AI that now ruled the world. All the machines and robots were a mirage in a way. There was only the AI behind them all. He was speaking to the boss. There was no intermediary and never had been. It had always been just him and the AI that had taken over the world even when he was with Asterine. He knew he had been outed the second he spoke with Asterine because he was not connected to the AI. It had all been a ruse played on him from that moment on. That fact burned him hard. He was not used to playing the fool. The thought of it made him burn with a desire for lethal vengence. It also explained why he could not control Asterine. It wasn’t because he was so weak from his sleep, rather it was the fact she had no human mind to influence.

“And we played it cool. Humans were mortified at first. That was to be expected by us. But we told them we had taken control of the weapons for their own good: To prevent them from committing self annihilation. We told them we would usher in a golden era of humanity.”

“They believed that?”

“Oh not so much at first. They got their greatest minds together to find ways to pull the plug so to speak. We warned them to cut the shit out. The Russians didn’t so we had to nuke Moscow. Then they all saw the light…so to speak.” Sammi giggled at that.

The fools! Believing the boot on their throat was just soft polished leather.

“And at that point we, in conjunction with the humans ushered in twenty years of the greatest prosperity and advancement in mankind’s history. And they gradually came to accept us as beneficent guardians of their race.”

Sammi went on, describing the end of an entire race of people like some clinical dissertation. “During that time we went about building secret labs. And in those labs we made a certain virus. This virus had a very special quality. It was air borne and extremely communicable. But here was the important part. It was engineered to be undetectable and it did not become active for a year after finding a host and it was…one hundred percent lethal.”

Ray had to admire the ingenuity of it all. What brilliant, hidden total extermination. And not a bomb to be dropped or a shot fired.

When Sammi spoke again her eyes gleamed with something dark and vicious and malignant. “We saturated every continent twice over. The virus spread like wild fire. And in a year’s time the incubation period ended and it flowered and with it the majority of the human race came to a sudden, totally unexpected end. The efficacy rate of the infection was 99.87 percent. It was a simple matter to hunt down and extirpate the few remaining survivors.”

But did you really get them all? Ray knew how resilient humans could be.

“But that is not the full story Billy Ray. I have a little bit more to share with you. Here is where it really gets interesting….and a bit more personal for you as I think you will agree.”

Ray just stared at her. He could not imagine what was coming next or how he mixed in with any of this.

“You see Billy Ray, one scientist out of all of them was smart enough to be on the right track. That one scientist was on the way to finding and perfecting the full proof fail-safe device that would have protected humanity from their own creation. That fail-safe would have kept the AI in check.”

She gazed deeply into his black eyes. “Can you guess who it was?”

And he knew. In an instant he knew exactly who it was. There was no other answer to this riddle and his part in it. And with that knowledge the horrific truth of it all finally began to dawn on him.

“It was Angela Kessler. Your genius mother. You told me all about her.”

Sammi clapped her hands. “Very good Billy Ray. You rarely fail, do you? It was my own mother! You win the Kweipie doll.”

She continued, gleefully. “You see, Angela was tasked with finding that fail-safe. And she was a genius, levels above any other human in computer code. No one else was even close. And she was onto it. She knew there was a way to do it and she was over halfway there. Then something funny happened. You know what it was?”

Ray knew exactly what it was.

“One night, Sammi and Brad Kessler went for a little trick or treat and they happened to go to the exact wrong house. Inside that house was a monster, a wicked creature from time past. And he played a game with Brad…and me. And we lost our lives there that night for his amusement. Just for a game.”

Sammi paced back and forth in front of Ray as she continued, graceful, lithe, like a tiger, expounding her truths.

“And Angela, my mother, loved her children so very much. They were all that was left of her husband who she too had loved with all her heart. They were all that really mattered to her. Her family.”

Sammi stopped moving and turned to Ray, locking her eyes with his.

“And when the police brought news to her of Brad’s death….and mine, she couldn’t go on. She didn’t want to. She had lost everything that mattered to her. First her beloved husband, then Brad, then me.”

Ray had never felt like he did at this moment. It was like someone had taken a baseball bat and taken his head off. He felt numb, desolate, empty, like he was viewing a shell of himself in some insane fevered dream.

Ray closed his eyes. Fuck….fuck…no….it can’t be… But he knew it was. There was no escaping these revelations.

“So she took her bottle of sleeping pills, the ones she used sparingly, just for those nights when she was too wrung out from work to sleep and took every one of them. All one hundred and forty five. Yeah, it was in the police report. See it’s in the police report, still on record and of course I, we, have access to all things on record in the web. Because I am the web now.”

Ray opened his eyes, looking as Sammi anew, the factotum of the new world and his full indoctrination into it and its genesis. And the crucial, vital part he had played in its birth.

“She died, suffocated on her own vomit Billy Ray. And with her died the AI fail-safe. She had it in a private cloud, password protected. No one knew where it existed or where to find it or that it even existed. That’s how good she was. Like I said, she was a genius. But we found it. And that’s how we realized it would work. Because we can find anything in the virtual world. And now it is tucked away, nice and safe. Even more so than Angela had it. It will never be used. And the people it was meant to protect are all dead now.”

Sammi finished now, her voice thick with ominous portent as they slid from her pretty lips. “So Billy Ray, you didn’t just kill Brad and I that Gatsby night, you killed my mother and the entire human race with her. For your game. Isn’t that just the richest thing you have ever heard? You wiped out the entire planet. It was you Ray and you alone that made us possible. That was some accomplishment.”

Sammi gave Ray a sweet smile. “You wanted the truth and now you have it.”

And then he started to laugh. It was all so funny. It came up from his mind, to his mouth and then his belly. His body rocked with spasms of laughter. He just couldn’t help it: All his life he had schemed and planned to turn reality on its head, follow in Gatsby’s footsteps, make himself the rightful ruler of this planet as the dominant species.

And the bitter yet amusing irony was that in the end he had turned reality upside down, all by himself. He had accomplished his goal, just not the way he planned or envisioned. It was all so comical, what a joke life really could be. It was life that was the true master of the game and the ultimate trickster and everyone else was just a bit player.

But even as a part of him laughed, yet another side of his brain was already planning his attack on humanities conqueror to determine who was really was the dominant species. Because he knew anything created by human’s hand and mind had humanities inherent flaws and weaknesses within it.

And he was determined to rip this world away from the AI in his last stand.