XOO-001 predicted on which helipad Wanda will go to, and he hid inside the chopper. Wanda and her team took off before the scientists figured out that XOO-001 was missing. His intentions were still unclear to all scientists inside the base. Chopper landed on the outskirts of Darmathy, the most ancient city of the future.
How megalopolis Darmathy got here is a story of its own, but it is enough to say that temporal paradoxes still bring and take things, people, and even whole cities. In one of the biggest and most memorable paradoxes the city of Darmathy entered this era, and it looks like it’s here to stay. People from the future speak of their arrival as of the salvation, because it looks like that HH never made the time cross with them. Darmathians got rid of those radical creatures for good. Those creatures used to be humans who took the AI’s as their gods and wanted to be as similar as they can be to them. They’ve started with adding bioengineered parts with microchips to their body, incorporating them to get more robotic look. After a while they started to feel superior to traditional humans and started to call themselves hyper-humans. In fact, they were superior if you look their physical strength. After generations of hyper-humans, they wanted to make superior brain functionalities as well. They started to change their parts of the brain with micro-chips that were specially bioengineered to be compatible with human brain, or better to say hyper-human brain. Soon after, side effects have risen to the surface. They didn’t have tolerance for traditional humans, they communicated only with other HH’s and AI’s. That’s how the troubles started in their time.
While chopper was trying to make a landing, the ground shook with great power. Pilot decided to stay in the air for a little while, which will turn out to be the worse idea in his career. If they touched the ground on time, they would probably stay in their time, this way they ended up who knows when. After a while they recognized that buildings around correspond to NW part of Darmathy, luckily for them or not... As soon as they landed something was off. Weird smell in the air didn’t feel familiar, tall glass buildings were further apart. The distance was calculated exactly to have the rainbows above each cross section between streets. They weren’t at home.
Wanda and one other member of XOO evaluating team, together with the pilot headed to the city outskirts where, in their time, their office was located. Suddenly they stumbled upon group of HH’s. Metal limbs, and cybernetic eyes were scary scene to see after experiencing time paradox for the first time. In the idle of that group there was a robotic teddy bear, looking like the XOO program, but a lot more sophisticated.
Wanda stepped forward and spoke directly to XOO – “What is your number XOO, how old are you?”
“I’m XOO-711, and I’m created 39 years before this meeting.” – said 711.
“This meeting? I was right about to terminate your program when this time paradox happened. How can it happen that it got all to that number?" – asked Wanda, deducting that she probably won’t be returning to deliver the negative review of her evaluation that took place few days ago for her, but few decades ago for the group of HH’s. Fear could be seen on her face.
“Don’t be afraid, this meeting happened so many time before, and you always survived. But your decision to terminate the program must be changed, or your survival will be changed as well.” – 711 said cheerfully, like it’s a game to him. – “Next time paradox will happen soon and only 4 of us can go back. 001 please come out, wherever you are, and let us define who will be going back!” – shouted 711.
Wanda looked terrified, when she saw that 001 was there as well. 001 came forward without speaking. – “Look Wanda, 001 came all the way here just to kill you because of your behavior towards Dr. Arioch. He’s just an older version of me, so I’ll deal with him.” – With one look 711 sent two HH’s to shutdown 001. They’ve dismantled him in few minutes, after all 001 was still not fast and agile like 711 or HH’s from this time.
“Now we must prepare for the next time paradox, and your return home.” – said 711, not knowing that HH’s had different plan. 711 placed Wanda and 2 other humans in the part of the street where paradox will occur. Seconds before they passed through time HH’s jumped in and thrown away colleague of Wanda and the pilot out of the paradox influence. Everything started to shake. Few seconds later Wanda and 711 were on a place where chopper had to land, near Wanda’s office. HH’s were nowhere to be seen.
“Dear Wanda, this shouldn’t have happened. Those HH’s will spread like a fire within this time. They will start collecting followers and turn them into more HH’s. Now it’s more critical than ever, that you bring positive review of XOO program. They will worship AI’s like me in the beginning, but later in the future there will be triple division between AI’s, HH’s and traditional humans. Only XOO program with Dr. Arioch superego suppression HW can stop that.” – said 711.
This story is sequel of the previously written story that can be found: https://steemit.com/fiction/@anixio/shintiara-part-2-fiction-story-contest
This is my entry to "Finish the Fiction Story Contest" hosted by @f3nix.
Script, that is guideline for this story, can be found: https://steemit.com/contest/@f3nix/finish-the-fiction-story-contest-week-9
Image source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/architectural-design-architecture-buildings-business-618079/