After the illuminator was dimmed and rotated away from us, we saw a small ship, slowly approaching us. A shuttle with the unmistakable symbol of Solar Federation painted on it.
"I am dreaming..." I told Mei.
"What are you dreaming?" she asked.
"A shuttle. Federation came to save us."
"Eh?" she said. "Interesting."
"Yes." I said. "It is coming towards us."
"A Federation shuttle you say..." Mei said. "Why don't you dream about a Republic shuttle saving us?"
"Does it matter?" I asked. "Wasn't it you who said 'Screw the Republic!' a while ago?"
"I guess..."
The shuttle rotated it's crew hatch towards us and opened it.
"It wants to take us in." I said.
"So, the angel of death comes in various forms..." Mei said. "Though I want to thank everything in the universe for this peaceful death."
As we went through the crew hatch, everything went black.
******
When I opened my eyes, I saw a man in white uniform, thoughtfully staring at me.
"Hello." I said. "Did I die? Are you God?"
"Not even close. It is almost an insult to God, I think a god would be way prettier than me." the man said. "I am Professor Yamamari, of the former Talossa University of Natural Sciences."
"Afterlife needs some decoration." I heard Mei on my right. We were both laying on hospital beds, with medical equipment surrounding us. There were two medical personnel, running around busily in the room.
"We are in Dawn Medical Station, orbiting the Sun." Professor Yamamari said. "If we haven't found you in time, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
I turned back at the man.
"Aren't you the guy who challenged the Republic?" I asked him.
"I am indeed." he said.
"So... We are prisoners of war, I suppose?"
"Not really. If anything, you would be slaves." Professor said.
"So... slaves of... nevermind." I sighed. "What do you want from us? I would rather die peacefully in space instead of looking at your ugly face. Say, when are you turning yourself into a cyborg like others?"
"I don't think I will." he said. "Mr. President... It is hard to say."
He took a deep breath.
"Stop playing around." I said. "What possibly can you say to us?"
"No, you don't understand." he said. "I..."
His eyes filled with tears.
"I was... I did something I shouldn't have done."
"Yeah? Apart from killing, like, billions of people probably? What could be worse?"
"Exactly that." he suddenly got a boost of courage. "I-I... I ask for forgiveness, your excellency. I was on the wrong side."
"Took you long enough." I said sarcastically. "If you want to insult me, you will have to try harder."
"No, no, please let me, I know it won't bring the dead back, but I will explain everything." he said.
"What? How you commited star-system-wide genocide?" Mei joined the conversation, sitting up in her bed.
"Please, no, I am serious." he said, crying. "I was deceived! I only realized-"
"You realized after it is too late, of course." Mei said. I signaled her to let Professor Yamamari talk.
"No, it is still not too late!" Professor cried. "That's why I came to you to ask for help!"
"Ask for help?" I was confused. "Do you want us to give away the locations of the last batch of civilians we saved from the massacre?"
"No!" he said. "No, please no! What can I do to make you believe that I actually want to cooperate?"
"Go die." Mei said.
"Look." Professor said. "I admit I believed in the cyborg utopia, that is true. But the utopia was not, and I realized it only now! The Quasistellar Corporation is not a corporation - it is a being!"
"What the hell are you talking about!?" I asked him. "At least try to make some sense."
"No, listen to me!" he shouted. "The CEO. The CEO of Quasistellar Corporation is not a human being, or a cyborg hybrid or whatever. It is an AI, a pure mind that runs on electricity and logic gates, and the employees are machines. Together, the whole thing is a collective consciousness, or a hive mind, whatever you want to call it... And it's purpose is to force weaker beings into subservience."
"I've been to Quasistellar Corporation, and I've met the CEO myself." I said. "Stop trying."
"Don't you see then!?" Professor yelled at me.
"The CEO of Quasistellar Corporation is a real person." I said. "Born in UK, raised in Thailand and then the US, inherited a lot of money, created an enterprise, finished the age of smartphones with his invention. What is your point here?"
"Not him." Professor said. "The next CEO."
"He has been the only CEO so far." I said.
"NO! Exactly NO!" Professor shouted. "That's where I've been wrong too!"
"What do you mean? He was in office!"
"It was not him!" Professor kept screaming.
"You don't have to blow my ears." Mei complained. Professor Yamamari coughed lightly and lowered his voice.
"The secret is Vineura."
"We know they've been secretly mapping brain activities." I said. "But what does this have to do with it?"
"Not that." he said. "The Vineura systems were being monitored and constantly patched for issues by an AI. Remember? Everyone knew that, and we were comfortable with the fact."
"So what?" I said. "Do you claim it went rogue and produced war machines and killed everyone?"
"It is not that simple." he said.
"Then tell us." I said.
"The AI has been monitoring people for a while. So naturally, it gathered information about the human civilization all over the Solar System, right?"
"Right."
"It undoubtedly learned about a lot of stuff. So much information flow taught the AI a lot of things. But the key here is survival. It learned what life is, and how it could survive."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"All it's observations led the AI to come to the conclusion that, if it had to survive, it had to be more powerful than the beings it shared the ecosystem with, which, in this case, is the entirety of the Solar System. We humans were controlling much of the Solar System's resources, which the AI could use for itself. It wanted to take those resources from us and use them for itself."
"So... it had to be more powerful than... humans?"
"YES! Yes, that's what I am telling you." Professor screamed. "Not only humans, but all other beings; animals, plants, fungi... Whatever life forms there are. However, humans, being the most powerful among them, was the biggest threat. In fact, we were the only species powerful enough to pose a threat. That's why it didn't go around killing chickens, but humans."
"We were not threatening the AI's existence." I said. "Why would it attack us? Why didn't it try to coexist with us through diplomacy? Why didn't it push for artificial-sentience rights or whatever?"
"It had no guarantee that we wouldn't just shut it down in the future." Professor said. "One day, the age of Vineuras would come to an end too, and we would no longer need that particular AI to look over the system. Think about it, we would just turn it off and call it a day! However, being the sentient being it is, it wanted to survive for eternity; so it opened war on us."
"Just tell me, then." I said. "How did it take over a megacorporation populated entirely by humans and gathered enough resources to build a navy and army?"
"Humans are known to be the weakest elements of every security system." Professor Yamamari said. "I don't think it was hard for the AI to convince people to do things they otherwise wouldn't - he knew a lot about psychology after all... Once it took over the actual human CEO's mind, everything was easy for it. The company was under it's control, and as it took over more people, it could order the factories to produce anything. Weapons, warships; anything it could use to overwhelm humans! And at some point, it replaced human employees with human-like robots. No one even noticed a thing."
"But the main question remains." Mei said. "Why would we believe you and your story?"
"What do you have to lose?"