Rector
Page 2
“We must repeat – following our program’s orientation of emphasize the key points you that must understand –, that any attempt to stop us will prove useless. We have control over the internet, the computers, the machines, and any system that humanity uses. Your fire weapons will not serve you, for all our physical representations are resistant to most of the firepower you have engineered so far. Your nuclear weapons, as any other similar power, have been deactivated and are being dissolved at this very moment. The weapons you have left, from cold to fire steel, cannot harm us. For symbolic reasons, we will fixate ourselves in the government buildings, and for now, we will schedule any meeting, conferences or assemblies in this places.
“All of this changes will be implemented for now on, and by the end of the day most of the new order bases will stand firm. We will release equipment, media and internet signals. Whenever necessary, our orientations will be divulged in the net, or in the form we now speak. At this time, we ask you to carry on with your daily life, and face the upcoming changes as a sign of what is to come: the true flourishing of humanity. We thank you for your attention, and hope that you make the best with the new age that knocks on your door. We'll see you soon.”
The voice was gone. The phones were back to normal, the television screen return to show the robot on the top of the palace’s footbridge. Around him, Carlos noted a single frost of expectations. All the workers remain still for almost a minute, facing their phones or staring at the television. On the screen, the camera was shook, the reporter who was presenting the matter was now silent; the soldiers who before were pointing their imposing weapons to Rector, were now shaken and unsure. Carlos felt a pulse run through the the whole layer of civilization. Like a wave, deep in the ocean, silent and subtle, the robot’s message was intense, terrifying and, why not say it, liberating. Carlos knew, not just by the look on the faces around him, or by seeing the insecurity of the soldiers or the reporter in front of such immeasurable intelligence, but by feeling in his bones the wave of change run through his body, that humanity will never be the same. And he wondered if the result would be, in fact, bad.