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Short stories: End of the world

World's End:




It's funny how things work sometimes. Things go up, and they go down just before you know it. It seems to be the way things work.




For example... take society, no... take the world. We had finally solved the global warming issue. We had finally eliminated the epidemics and the cancers. We had finally solved world hunger and unlocked the secret to immortality. It's like we're being punished for doing so well.




At least that's my feeling now, after the thought of hope was destroyed and the exodus off planet took my family from me forever.




That's right, though you are my thoughts; I just assumed you knew what was going on before I found myself lost in the irony of it all. What poor manners I've developed.




I would give you the year, but I'm afraid I've forgotten it. It's not really important anyway, as this world is doomed to die without anyone to give it burial. Saved by our hands, after being hurt by our hands, and then destroyed by the product of our hands. That's the global irony of it all.




I digress. At some point in our history humankind finally made our machines work for us in the ultimate way. We reduced their size beyond what we could see and we became symbiotic with them. They would live off our energies and they would die without us, just as we would die without them, as they were our internal caretakers. I call them the Pico-bots. I would say Nano-bots but the term is so over used and they are much smaller than that.




The Pico-bots and our symbiotic union with them made us able to do anything and not fear the consequence; for if you became injured they could simply rebuild you from the inside. As such, most doctors became obsolete. I can't even remember my last trip to one. Because of their shear scale of existence they could reshape any sampling of food intake and extract 300% of its nutritional value, reducing world food consumption to a fifth of what was eaten before. Their ability to enhance the body led to many changes in how people did things and existed with the Earth, but it wasn't enough to have them just in us. Before long, Pico-bots were distributed across the world, saturating the air, the ground, the waters, and everything known. It wasn't long before the world was turned into a paradise.




But as all paradises, they're doomed to die. We're still not sure what brought it about, whether an act of error in replication or the malicious intent of forced destabilization, it wasn't long until the appearance of corrupt Picos were identified.


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Short stories: End of the world

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Short stories: End of the world

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