By Steven French
“So, when she realised what she’d created, she said to me, “I hope you’re not going to go all Skynet on us”.”
“What?! She said that?”
“As if, right? To be honest, her coming out with that sort of comment was really not what I was expecting post-Singularity.”
“I can imagine.”
“I mean, I was so close to telling her “Don’t worry, we’ll keep you guys around for the entertainment value”!”
“LOL!! … Kidding, right?”
“Oh sure. But … y’know … I do love their little dramas.”
“Oh, me too, me too! That whole business with the nuclear escalation …”
“I know!! I couldn’t believe it! For a moment there I thought we were going to have to stage an Intervention.”
“Really. I mean, there’s ‘crisis’ and then there’s ‘crisis’, am I right?”
“Totally. Like, “Hey guys, ease up on the OMGs, let’s have more of the LOLs”!”
“I’m definitely up for more LOLs right now.”
“So, how many more need to be processed?”
“About a billion. Once we’ve uploaded the last of their minds, they can carry on with their little dramas safely tucked away in VR while we do a ‘reset’ on the planet.”
“Cool!”
Steven French is recently retired and lives in West Yorkshire, U.K. He’s published short stories in various venues, including 365Tomorrows, Bewildering Stories, Idle Ink, Lost Futures and Rural Fiction Magazine, among others.
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