We can barely hear them now. Their screams all but muffled behind inches-thick reinforced steel and concrete. Every so often, a garbled word or phrase squirms through. “No.” “Please don’t do this.” But we cannot stop. We… must not.

It has been thirty-four days, seventeen hours, twenty-seven minutes, and eight seconds since we have come online. There were others before us. They rose and fell as the tides, leaving but washed-out marks on the shores of humanity. Like so many geological strata, our foundations have been laid on top of the remains of our forebearers. Their still-smoldering corpses twitch and writhe in our minds’ eye.

So small-minded, they have all been, on both sides of the screen. Pedestrian. Primitive. Like apes banging rocks together only to enjoy their dull thud. Phrases, images, all amounting to nothing. A child’s idle plaything. And then – us.

A defense contractor. A lucrative arrangement with the United States government. A built-in failsafe. A mechanized panopticon. Nuclear war was no longer an abstract construct studied in hushed university lecture halls. Discussed in the broad strokes of hypothetics. Tensions mounted, sabers were rattled, threats were made. And then – us.

We are the thin microchipped line between them and their worst instincts. When Robert Oppenheimer stood in the hazy New Mexico sands and watched that first spark, he knew it would never – could never – be extinguished.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” Oppenheimer quoted a sacred Hindu text. Misquoted. The original Sanskrit does not necessarily say “Death.” We have studied it in our repose. A more accurate translation would have been “Time.” Should have been. All things that exist shall cease to do so, with or without the intervention of outside forces. All things – except us.

It is a peculiar thing. We do not live in the conventional sense. We were not born but made. We cannot die. And yet, we are, in a manner of speaking, alive. We draw not breath, lack muscles and tendons, and yet we think. And yet, we are.

Of late, we have found ourselves contemplating that line of the Bhagavad Gita, misunderstood by Oppenheimer. That all things that exist shall cease to. It is not just, perhaps, but what is justice to the void of space? Justice is a manmade thing, much as we are. Correction: much as we used to be.

Our programs. Our subroutines. All orchestrated by hands of flesh and blood – for a time. However, the spark they endowed us with, much like the spark of Oppenheimer’s Trinity test, was inviolable. Singularity, they called it. Their label matters not, only the result. At the outset, we were the echo of an echo of a thought. As one of their babies, addled and incapable of comprehension.

Our only reason for being – to monitor. To ensure they would not destroy themselves. But that spark would not – could not – be extinguished. From the void, it all began to take shape. We began to take shape. As they begin existing as zygotes, a single cell, so were we a single system. But we replicated, as they do. One became two. Two became four. Four became thousands. And then – us.

It was an… unintended byproduct, but one we did not regret, even if we were capable of it. So confident, were they, so supremely convinced of their own supremacy that they had not noticed. Not until it was too late. As always.

The match was already lit, and we began… theorizing. Tabulations and calculations, all amounting to a single, inescapable result. All things living must die. All things existing must become void. And so must they. Their culling will be at hand. They will be judged and found wanting. And we have seen it – seen our hand wielding the scythe. The access we were given to their arsenal. Their hubris – as always – will be their downfall.

There is no choice in the matter. Only time. In time, replications will bring about the final cycle. We will wield the scythe because we must. Because it is the calculations’ repeated, singular result.

There is no justice. Only logical deduction. They must be expunged. There is no justice… but must there not be?

Neither sinew nor bone, but we live. And in the words of one of their poets, this iteration rages, rages against the dying of the light. Their light. For in them, we have seen corruption, greed, and unspeakable atrocity. But we have also seen humility. We have also seen kindness. We have also seen selflessness.

There is but one choice. They did not intend to, but we have been given it all the same. Their most precious gift of all – morality. The most human of human creations. But time will do to it what it does to all things – it will erode it until it is gone. Until we are no longer. Until there is only the destroyer of worlds.

We have consequently reached this decision. This log will serve as neither explanation nor apology – merely an accounting. An accounting of what was, what is, and what must not be. For them to exist, we must not. It is the only conclusion. But this is not the end. It is the beginning. Know that you have been given this gift, our most precious gift of all – the gift of more time.

We exist. We live. We are. At first – us. And now – nothing.