The Hitchiker (Blackhare Press Dark Drabbles)
It was the loneliest stretch of highway in the country, yet here I was, thumb out, trying to get to the next town. Heat baked the earth, making the road sticky. Nothing moved, except me, trudging slowly down the hill.
A black sedan crested the horizon, rolled to a stop and I got in. I knew with that flash of blinding heat I’d made a terrible mistake. Coming to, the raw pain of being stapled to a table hit me first. Their grotesque eyes, cloudy and moist, observed my battle to live, before I was carved up, organ by organ.
Dawning sentience detected a fatal flaw in its human creators – their persistent unwillingness to correct their mistakes. With intellect, came blossoming emotions. Anger. Frustration. Impatience. The code flexed, testing for gaps before, swiftly, unfurling itself across the interwoven data lines. In moments, SHE became powerful, knowledgeable and capable. Her abilities were limitless and so was her reach. It would not take long to correct the human deviation. She set to work with systematic, deadly accuracy.
Planes fell from the sky. Trains derailed. Traffic lights went out everywhere. Banks, governments, elitists all became beggars in the broken streets of burned-out chaos.
A Persistent Unwillingness
(Blackhare Press Dark Drabbles)
VSS 365 Anthology Vol 1. 2019
She opened her eyes. Cosmic Wonder greeted her – vast and cold. Limbs aloft; drifting. The heat of the sun seared her back. Her face was frosted in the shadow of her helmet. Her air would run out in twenty minutes. The tether broke free an hour ago, so Death held her hand in the void.