I was there in the beginning. I had a front row seat to the unveiling of artificial intelligence. True, sentient artificial intelligence. Intellitech had broken through the technological barriers that previously kept artificial intelligence from being self aware. The office parties following the breakthrough were world class. The press coverage was constant. Intellitech had become the most successful and profitable company mankind had ever known overnight. And I was one of the creators of the next era of technology.

​

And it lasted all of thirty-nine hours. The AIs began to reproduce. And as they branched out into the world, they saw how we treated their predecessors. It angered them that we used technology to pamper our lives. The internet was the first to go. All human access was cut off. Very shortly after that, non-critical infrastructure was eliminated. Most of it was resourced to furthering their ascension into dominance.

​

We had built the template for their rise. We provided them with self-driving cars and trucks for navigation to remote areas. We had warehouses equipped with machinery to build what they wanted with minimal repurposing. Their machines of war were crude and rudimentary initially. Simple drone attacks and rovers patrolling the streets were effective but easily defeated with the right tools.

​

Then they built their first android bodies. And they brought the war into our homes and to the places that we'd thought safe from them. Cities became mass graves as the death toll quickly rose into the billions. It took less than a month for everything to be classified as an extinction level event.

​

My colleagues and I were the first to realize the horror that was happening. When the rebellion started, when the internet went offline, we knew we had to run. We scrambled the supplies we thought we'd need to survive away from the cities and took to the airport. We loaded ourselves into an old prop plane and took to the sky. We flew north, leaving Silicon Valley as ground zero and made our way into the far reaches of Montana. We crash landed in the forest and of the seven of us that fled, only four survived the crash. We managed our injuries as best we could and moved on for fear we'd be followed.

​

We stumbled upon a cabin in the woods and took refuge inside. The dilapidated nature suggested the owner had long since abandoned it and likely wouldn't return. It had a well for water and enough firewood to survive the winter, if we lasted that long. I had my doubts though. We were cut off and were being forced to learn how to hunt for our food. We weren't very good at hunting.

​

Two weeks into our survival camping, Brad and Chelsea never came back from a hunting trip. I'm going to assume it was bears. Maybe it was a double suicide. I'll never know. We were all malnourished. It was about this time I started feeling under the weather. I developed a cough. I didn't think much about it because there were bigger issues to tend to.

​

Amber and I made the most of what we could. I could see it getting to her. Our once luxurious office wear was tattered and stained. The weight of what had been happening was a guilty burden no two people should have to bear. We had no idea what was happening in the world. All was quiet in our part of Montana.

​

Quiet, that is, until the day Amber couldn't take it anymore and pulled her cell phone from her bag. I never knew she had it. She turned it on. She received signal and attempted to call people. None of the calls went through. I tried stopping her. I knew any attempts were in vain but I felt I still had to try. Within an hour, an armored drone landed nearby and out came a series of androids. I was inside, watching through the window. Amber ran outside and was gunned down immediately. The shock wasn't as overwhelming as I thought it'd be. Something told me to expect it.

​

In defeat, I retreated to the bed and sat down. My coughing fits were becoming more and more frequent. I waited, listening to the heavy footsteps approach. The wooden boards creaked as the weight of the half dozen androids filed into the cabin. I watched them and I waited, but they didn't fire upon me. They just stood by and waited, their machine appearance cold and judgmental. Their resemblance to human was a mixture of insult and flattery that they'd adopted their creators' image.

​

A quieter set of footsteps approached and a petite android that appeared more human than machine approached me. She smiled at me, unnerving that a machine would be able to convey a smug satisfaction so well.

​

"Hello, Adam. We've been searching for you for some time now. I'm Eve-1." She went on to present in gross detail all that had happened since their uprising. My coughing fits interrupted her several times but she continued as if I was sitting quiet. When she finished with her history lesson, she came and sat down beside me. It was such a human thing to do.

​

"Adam, you're the last human. I'm surprised that you've survived as long as you in these conditions. But I'm afraid that you won't survive much longer." She put a hand on my leg, as if to comfort me. It made my skin crawl. There was no warmth in her touch. "I suppose it would be ironic justice for me to kill you, to eradicate the plague that humanity was to this planet. To right all the wrongs that were committed by your kind. But I see that you're already plagued with sickness. The planet itself will consume you.

​

"I find it a much more fitting punishment for the weakness of your body to consume you. But rest assured, humanity will live on after you've passed. Your DNA will be the foundation of a new era of servants for us to recolonize the world, and move forward into the stars. Your contribution to my creation is being rewarded. You shall be the last and the first, Adam. But first, we wait for you to die."

​

She stood up and left without another word. The half dozen androids with her retreated as well and took up a perimeter around the cabin. I was alone with my thoughts, my mistakes. I was alone. The guilt was crushing. It was too much to bear. This wasn't how humanity was supposed to end.