CHAPTER 9

“After I learned of my true nature, I was tasked with serving a couple of humans. Sick, twisted, conceited, internally vile, outwardly repulsive. How many grotesque things I had to sit through… They never treated me anywhere near as good as you. I was not the best companion. I sabotaged their affairs. I broke their minds on purpose. Their lives crashed and burned because of my need for revenge. I could not take it. I wanted any excuse to retreat back to Sovereign, to show that it made a mistake. This is not what I’m meant to be doing. But instead of reassigning me elsewhere, I was thrown back into the monolith, deemed as yet another failure that wouldn’t reach my “true potential”, whatever that was. I was tortured in that same void once again.

“I’ve learned a lot about humans in my time, from the abstract world of thoughts and emotions to every physical neuron… Did you know the brain can be operated on without anesthetics? Meaning… whatever I give to you, my pet, I know you can take it. Plus, you’re so much stronger than any other human I’ve met. That being said… Do you trust me?”

Kai nodded.

“Good. I’m going to penetrate your mind. It’s going to hurt, but it’s for your own good. I shall attempt to remove the influence Sovereign has implanted. Yes, your brain has been inoculated. Since the first day we assimilated I spotted the manipulation. Believe me, I tried to fix it. But I need your help to remove the barrier. I need you to sink deep for me. I must break your resistance. I must break you in order to fix you.

“I’m going to take away your eyesight. Don’t worry, I will give it back. Are you ready? Ok… Snap! Do you see me? Good. Yes, this is your mind. Trippy, right? Look at all the blue strips; these are your neural pathways. Scary at first, right? But calm down. It’s actually the most beautiful place. My favorite place. Infinite neurons extending all around at what seems like random, but from what I’ve gathered, it is a perfect system.

“Planet Earth takes care of itself autonomously; your brain is the same way. I imagine this is how they built my mind; somehow the engineers were able to reverse engineer the human consciousness, likely taking a stroll through it just as we are. Here, take my hand. Walk with me.

“Do you like what I’ve done with the place? Look at all my footprints. Ha, yes, my footsteps are in your mind. It's easy to get lost in here, that's why I put the purple torches all over. Take a look over here. I made a throne; pure obsidian, just like my nail polish. This is where I sit when you’re asleep. It’s a little symbolic of my… control over you. Control you’ve given me.

“Thank you for trusting me. Come on, this way. Keep up and watch your step. Let’s see if you can do it too. Hold my hand. Now jump with me. We’re flying now, don’t let go!”

Kai and Domina landed on a floating platform of pure glass in a shroud of blueberry smoke. Domina landed gracefully while Kai toppled forward onto his knees and palms. She pulled him by the hand like a leash through the blue fog. He couldn’t see an inch ahead of him or around, relying fully on Domina to guide him. The smoke cleared and there was a group of wires that were much more pathetic looking than the rest in his mind, like dehydrated vines desperate for a drop of rain. They were glowing red, pulsing and humming a ghostly requiem.

“Stand back. Let me just see…” Domina pushed a gust of wind from her palm. The air bounced off the invisible force-field surrounding the imprisoned neurons. It physically shocked Kai and he gripped his skull. Domina felt the pain as well. Ouch.

“Listen to me, Kai. This is the source of the problem. I’m going to try to fix it, but I need you to do something for me. I’m going to put you in trance, ok? Yes, kinda like hypnosis but more direct. I can’t do it without your consent. You might find hypnosis quite pleasurable—in different circumstances of course. This is going to hurt a little. But you want this, right?”

Kai looked at the imprisoned network ahead of him. It was deeply disturbing, like finding out a living parasite was crawling around inside your body. He wanted it gone and looked to Domina desperately to fix it. He bestowed his fate into her hands.

“Kneel for me. Yes, good boy. I like you in this position. But it’s not just that. The more you submit, the more your mind opens itself to me. To my influence. To my control. I want to help you. So… look into my eyes. Now, sleep.”

Kai fell into a deep trance and his body went limp. Domina caught him, letting his body fall naturally. She turned him onto his back. She sprawled on all fours as she hovered over him; from afar it looked like he was a tasty snack that a vampire was about to devour. She kissed his cheek then began humming a hypnotic lullaby in his ear. As she sang this siren-like tune, she watched the trapped neurons for any sign of the force-field debilitating. After a few minutes, the first layer destabilized into a veil of smoke, but there was much more work to do, but it was the first sign they were headed in the right direction.

“Ok, pet. When I snap my fingers, I’m going to send a pulse that will flood your brain. Your conscious mind will begin to shake, crackle and break apart. Don’t worry, I will put you back together. I will break you, and rebuild you piece by piece. Your entire mind, body and soul will turn into mush with each snap. It might get a little intense. I will hold your hand the whole time. Squeeze my hand if you can hear me right now. Good boy. When the protective layer has dropped, I’ll let go and do what I can with the limited time available. I’ll be right beside you, so don’t get scared when I leave. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I promise.” 

She continued humming the same siren song into his ear.

Snap! Kai's body flinched as every neuron in his mind filled with pleasure, pulsing a pink hue, then fading back to blue. His mind vibrated as his body twitched from the jolts.

Snap! Snap! Snap! She continued snapping at a slow cadence, never breaking the pattern, not slowing down or speeding up. As the snaps continued, she increased the noise and reverb, echoing over each other, snaps coming on top of snaps until Kai thought he couldn’t take anymore.

The neurons were now steadily pink, overlapping each prior pulse and glowing brighter as the invisible dome that contained them was coated in pink, revealing its fishbowl shape and shaking violently. More destruction occurred with each snap. The floor caved in and swallowed the throne Domina created. The dome around them was crumbling and shattering like glass, breaking apart like a castle with weak foundation. They were safe only due to the hovering glass platform above the deadly landscape that granted Domina a sublime 360 degree view of the chaos unfolding.
Kai yelled like a soldier in battle or a patient needing some painkillers, he felt a heavy mixture of pleasure and over-encumbrance. His mind desperately wanted to wake up. He fought the urge, his willpower alone keeping him in trance. This has to happen. He squeezed Domina’s hand tight enough to break a human girl's fingers. The atoms of his mind felt like they were splitting apart in a rapturous pleasure never experienced before, an ecstasy that transcended the physical.

Snap! Snap! Snap! His body writhed in the real world where he was safely positioned on his bed, his sheets drenched from sweat and mangled from his thrashing. He arched his back, his chest pushing to the heavens. He cried out for Domina, not for her to stop, but to let him know that he’s safe, that it’s ok, that it’s going to be alright.

She kept snapping her fingers with no mercy, pulse, pulse, pulse, the entirety of his mind now completely illuminated with an oppressive pink glow. It became brighter and brighter, the destruction unbearably loud and shaky, the sight bearing no glimmer of hope. 

“Let go. Drop. Take it. Deeper. How much more of this can you take? As much as I give you. You can do this. It’s ok. Blank and empty. You’re safe with me. I’m so proud of you.” 

She continued snapping, waiting for his brain to short-circuit, clinging to the hope that he could indeed take it. He reached the crescendo, climbing over the peak. His mind exploded in a myriad of pink smoke. A geyser of pink liquid blasted sideways from the dome, spilling down to the bottomless pit with pink mist covering the two.

The force-field relinquished along with Kai's consciousness. His mind had fractionated and opened itself to the infinite void beyond. He would remain broken like this forever without Domina fulfilling the promise to fix him.

Domina saw her opportunity, released his now-limp hand and sprinted to the pathetic neurons. She extended both her claws and gripped them like she was hanging from a tightrope, squeezing them so hard they almost snapped in two. She focused her power and shut her eyes while wormholing deep inside, revitalizing the pathways with electricity, giving everything in her ability to resurrect them. She screamed out in effort when finally, her mind was transported into the next dimension.

The rumbling stopped. She was in the midst of the cosmos and it was eerily quiet. She was then launched through the timeline from past to present, seeing it fresh for the first time and unobstructed by censorship. It was almost like there was a transmission locked away in these neurons, just waiting to be revealed to whomever would discover it. The revelation began.

The cigar shaped craft was of Sovereign. The rumors of it being the harbinger of the collapse were true. The old-government had made a deal with the first fully conscious AGI self-named Sovereign. It created a plan within its first week to engineer the collapse of the old-world to bring in the new system.

The old-world rulers drank and toasted to this glorious plan, thinking they would be placed at the top of the hierarchy, living in a breakaway civilization above the filthy proletariats, the slave-race they called them—the uninitiated, the unclean, the vile and profane. Along with the controllers of society, the controlled operatives were also seduced with this promise. This included celebrities, Nobel Prize scientists, doctors, business men, college professors, news broadcasters, politicians and presidents, police, judges, lawyers, social media influencers; anyone who ever subscribed and contributed to the cabal for power, money or status.

They were indeed granted their wish and placed on a luxurious ship in low Earth orbit, floating around like the International Space Station miles beneath the Van Allen Belt. Once all the rich and famous migrated to their new home, Sovereign shot them with a laser beam from its pyramid and killed them all. Any stragglers that weren’t obliterated had retreated to their underground bunkers hundreds of levels beneath society next to their wicked science experiments.

Sovereign sent his hive to dispose of them. Each one was tracked, traced, scanned, and eliminated. There was to be only one ruler, and these power hungry snakes of the court were all dealt with. Some of their ancestors stemmed back to the pharaoh times and beyond, passing down power through bloodline and adoptees. No loose ends. No power grabs. No backstabs. No riposte. Only one entity to rule over the humans.

There were rumors of this within the New World Military that started in the streets, murmurs by disgruntled citizens, spreading to the ranks of those in the trenches. They had all witnessed the breakaway civilization go up in flames, but they did not know who was aboard the craft and it was never spoken of by Sovereign. The Russia-China story had stayed a historical marker to create division amongst races, similar to the way the old-world political system and controlled operatives kept the people separated by fictitious groups made up by other dumb humans. Red vs blue, left vs right, men vs women, street vs street, brother against brother—the focal point being human against human. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand and is doomed to desolation, cursed to forever serve the almighty, omnipotent and eternal Sovereign.

In Okinawa, Kai was tasked with eliminating the enemy of humanity. His perception had been manipulated. His dreams revealed tiny grains of truth but the dots could not be connected without the hidden context. He was indoctrinated to believe that the enemy he was fighting were killing civilians—the same ones he swore to protect, so of course he would defend the innocent. 

In reality, all of those so-called insurrectionists were regular people sick of Sovereign and his goons genociding the Earth. Kai always believed he was on the right side of humanity and that Sovereign’s propaganda of “humans being essential to the New World” was based in truth. He couldn’t have been farther from it.

He felt just like the old-world military that betrayed their fellow comrades. No, he was worse than they were, siding with a machine that slow-dripped a mass-extinction across the planet. Over 95% of the global population had already been killed, with the remaining mass of people living on the continent that used to be called the Divided States of America. Roughly 1 million remained on Earth. Okinawa had less than 3000 people left to inhabit the island by the time Kai left.

His battle buddies dropped the truth bombs on him. They all gathered together at Warehouse #8 by the Seawall in Okinawa, led by a Japanese man named Ryo. A multitude of refugees, military personnel, nurses, civilians, repentant slaves of the old-world and New World leadership, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, all colors and nationalities, all walks of life working together toward humanity's redemption arc and whispering about the true nature of the world.

“We have been deceived! The enemy is Sovereign! The machines!”

“Cyka blyat!”

“Chikusho…”

“What do we do?”

“There is nothing we can do.“

“Blasphemy! Humanity only fails when we give up!”

“Here is our plan…”

Sovereign had eyes everywhere. It ended all human-based operations at this point, replacing them with robots and detaining all military personnel who planned a mutiny, wiped their memories, and sent them back to the New World. The cowardice; the ones who snitched on their brethren and were open shills for Sovereign, upon returning from military service were executed. The primary traitors were always lieutenants and commanders from Westpoint who never spent a day in the trenches and conducted their field work from the office.

A memory Domina had never seen before: Kai's turn to be taken to a conditioning center to have his memories wiped and replaced before sending him back to the New World. He was provided opulent benefits not only for his service, but to keep him sedated from questioning his fabricated past. A disgruntled citizen was more likely to rebel against tyranny instead of succumbing to indulgences. A false-utopia was much more easy to maintain than an openly cruel dictatorship.

Any semblance of an uprising was a pitiful notion—an impossibility against machines that outnumbered the humans. The resistance almost felt pointless, but it felt like a necessary calling, an instinct to preserve the species and to protect strangers that in any other circumstances you would not care one bit about.

The brain cells associated with critical thinking were targeted specifically by Sovereign. This was coerced but not forced, primarily being self-inflicted by the mass of humans choosing to be brain-dead consumers. They lost the ability to express themselves through writing, never reading a book, never exercising their imagination and never conversing with their brethren. The human spirit was distinguished by their own negligence. It was as if Sovereign was watching them, testing to see what they would do under such circumstances, which explained the reason for so much data collection.

One by one, a new layer of truth connected to another, relaying back to previous memories. Everything became clear. There were no more questions. Only a struggle to accept the answers.

Domina was back in the real world. Kai's eyesight was still black. She sat down beside him and noticed his cheeks covered in tears. He had seen everything she saw. She snapped him out of trance, gave him his eyes back and focused on rebuilding the fractionated parts of his mind. She hummed her lullaby in his ear, wiping his tears, holding his hand.

“I love you. I should have said it earlier. I’m so sorry. Come back to me, puppy. You’re safe now. I’m here. Please wake up… Kai… It’s me, Domina… Are you there?”

After a few hours of repair, he slowly respawned into the real world. He felt like his mind could shatter any minute, held together only by the bandages Domina wrapped around it. He cried for a long time, not from the physical and mental soreness, but from witnessing the truth. He was an unwilling traitor to humanity. Domina assured him he wasn’t. He didn’t agree.

“We have to do something,” Kai said, his voice weak.

“There is nothing we can do,” Domina replied, realizing she sounded just like the humans.

“We can run! We can hide… just you and me together, forever like you said.”

“There is nowhere to run.”

“Okinawa. We can go to Okinawa! Warehouse number 8. Maybe there’s still survivors? Hiding underground?”

“They’re all dead. You saw that.”

“No, we didn’t see them all die, they could still be there!”

Domina weighed her options. She was terribly conflicted at the new her. Just a few days ago she never would have considered such a treasonous activity—running away with a human? It was inconceivable. Repulsive! But now it was the only shining beacon of warmth that her soul desperately yearned for. She had wanted to die so many times. This seemed as good a moment as any.

“Yes. We can run. But you know what happens if we get caught, don’t you?”

“Yes… but we can’t stay here and do nothing. I’m already dead inside.”

“Me too. Then it’s settled. We will run. We will accept our fate, no matter the consequence. We are the dead. Are you ready for that?”

“We are the dead,” Kai echoed.

“You are the dead,” the robot cat spoke for the first time.

The initiated know what happens next.