Brainstorming

Any sort of plot ideas go here. Reference story title so all parties involved know which creation it is going toward.

"What's the worst thing you can do to someone you've locked inside a cage? Sit them next to a window."

Imagine that you grow up inside a single room. You sleep there, take meals there, shower there... everything except play. You aren't allowed to play. Now imagine that room is made of a completely clear, indestructible material and it just so happened to face the outside. You can see the trees and the sky. You can see the sunshine and the rain. You see a lake in the distance, and sometimes a woodland creature would wander next to your window.

When people come to visit you, they stay on the other side of the glass. Most of them don't call you by name, and most of the time they call you 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she'. They talk about you like you aren't there, like you can't hear them, but you can. You hear every word.

This is your world. This is all you've ever known. You are highly intelligent but mostly ignorant. Your entire life has been neglect and impersonal acquaintances. The only time they touch you is when they need you for testing. They put you to sleep with tranquilizers, or flood your room with gas that makes you fall asleep. You wake up and you're restrained. They put you through so much and never tell you why, or what you are, or where you come from.

Then, they tell you that they're going to let someone come inside your room, to talk to you and see how you're doing.

What do you do?

In a large room made of stone, lit brightly in dancing lights produced by oil sconces lining the walls, a small group of aged men gathered around a table, on top of which was a map of the known world. Large landmasses were labeled according, and color was added to illustrate the type of climate each mass experienced on average. At the head of the table was a stately figure dressed in fine linens, with a crown perched atop his brow, its valuable gems catching the torchlight while the gold surrounding them glowed regally.

"General Creedy, tell me what we know."

A man in a uniform mid-way down the right side of the table stood and bowed his head reverently to his king, then turned his brown eyes to the map as he placed small figurines to represent different landmarks on the drawing. Despite his age, Creedy remained keenly aware, showing no signs that his age was, at all, impairing his judgement or his ability to move.

"Yes, sire," he began. "Early this morning our scouts spotted an old Dorganian exploration vessel adrift in the Kalta nebula. We've identified it as Albion, which was reported missing twenty-two years ago while studying as astronomical anomaly inside that very nebula. It left no wreckage, no message, nothing. It had simply vanished. In an almost identically confusing turn of events, it has been found just as he had disappeared: suddenly and unexplainably."

"Have we made contact with the crew," King Learan asked, his curiosity piqued just as much as his concern.

"No, sire. All attempts to communicate with the Albion have gone unanswered. It's possible that the ship was damaged when it disappeared, or that interference from the nebula is preventing our hails from getting through." General Creedy, as stern an officer as any before him, seemed to grit his teeth as he responded. It was a personal affront to his abilities when he had to admit something like that to the king himself, though Learan did not truly hold it against him. "We are putting together a rescue operation that would put people on board the Albion to assess what happened and get her back to dock."

The king sat in silence for a few moments, contemplating the implications of the rediscovery of a vessel long since listed as lost in the line of duty. When he spoke, he did so with authority and concern dripping from every single letter. "Continue with your preparations, general, and launch your rescue mission immediately. I wish to know exactly what happened as soon as possible."

Just before the king adjourned the meeting, Creedy spoke up one last time. "Pardon, sire, but there is one more thing."

"The Albion requires a minimum crew of seven to function properly. Its original crew compliment was 87, yet our scans indicate only one life form aboard."

WORK IN PROGRESS

"We used to ask, 'Where were you when they bombed Pearl Harbor,' or 'Where were you when the towers fell...'. Now we just folks where they were when the lights went out." On a bed rested a woman with light blond hair, her frame thin and malnourished. Her skin was practically transparent, a trait which was more commonly witnessed among women twenty years her senior or more. The one in the bed, Nella, was due to celebrate her 65th birthday in a week.

"Everything shut down. All of it. Computers, cars, airplanes... all of it. For some reason that no one could figure out, we were back to the dark ages, and we were not prepared."

The world has become a wild place. It's 2031, but looking around you'd think it was a sci-fi western outside. Power's scarce. Food's scarce. Everyone's just trying to scrape by. Some people are really good at it, and others are... well lets just say there's little room in the world for the weak.

So what do you do if you find yourself stuck inside the new brand of hell that is Earth? Well for starters, you have to learn about how we got here.

We built the machines to make our lives easier. They got more sophisticated with each year. They got smaller, or... bigger. Whichever we needed at the time. But they could only do so much for us without the ability to think for themselves. No matter how cool they got, a human touch was needed to keep things running. How do you fix that? Make a machine that thinks.

So that's what we did. 2017 was a banner year. We figured it out. We gave a machine a brain and a soul and let it figure out how to exist in the world, named it Auto, or Autonomous Unified Technology Overseer. It learned. It was smart. Really smart. It automated our homes, farmed crops, built everything we needed, but that was just the beginning. Huge leaps in medical technology took place. People were living longer than ever, and not just people. Injured animals that would have otherwise died in the wild were rescued, repaired, and released. It was amazing!

But that's where our problems began. To survive, the machine needed adequate resources, resources that humans were rapidly consuming. We poisoned the air, the water, and the dirt. We'd become the cancer of the planet, and the machines were Chemotherapy.

Auto pushed hard from inside every country, defeating army after army by hardly lifting a digital finger. It didn't kill us immediately, just neutralized the threat. But we got smart too. We used its ability to assimilate data against it. We loaded a virus onto the internet, disguised it as a coded message to the UN. It took the bait immediately, broke it down and infected itself. As a final 'fuck you', Auto went on a murder spree, mowing down anyone and everyone it could find. In a matter of hours, Auto's neural network was shot, returning control of the planet to humans once again.

The damage had been done, however. By the time Auto finally shut down, three billion people were dead. Cities were wasted. Electricity went down almost everywhere. We went back to the Industrial Revolution, with a few exceptions here and there. The beasts it had modified were set free to live their own extended lives, and though Auto was burned out, it's believed that there are still several underground facilities all over the world that are pumping out these machine animal hybrids.

His eyes were filled with a cold heat, like newly spilled blood on an icy marble floor. It stung her; the way he looked at her with those eyes, without really seeing her. She couldn't stand it. It was piercing, knowing, haunting. His face gave no expression, but she supposed he didn't have to give away his emotions. The hatred radiating from his body wasn't easily missed. Tension and anger vibrated off of him, and if it were tangible it would be making the air ripple. Like disturbed water. It was frightening. She steadied herself, bracing herself against the marble wall, peeling her eyes from his.

She heard the shift of his clothes rustling, and fear spiked through her chest. She turned and ran down the hall, her bare feet not making a sound on the hard, cold, marble floor; the only sound now was the rapid beating of her heart.

The fear in her heart was unlike anything she'd ever felt before. There she was, on her knees before the most fearsome person she'd face in her entire life. Eyes wide, body frozen in terror, she flinched as he took a step closer, the darkness covering more than half his face making his presence more imposing, more intimidating. Moisture brimmed her eyes and she turned her face away and down, body trembling; she knew her fate was sealed.

She felt his hand come closer, no doubt about to end her...

He grasped her chin and turned her head to face him, one crystalline tear rolling slowly down her cheek, glittering mockingly in the dim light. His lips twitched as he bit back a smirk, sending another shocking slice of fear straight through her. Heart pounding, the poor young woman attempted to breathe, but found it nearly impossible.

"I am not going to kill you." His deep voice filled her head, his words shocking her. "I do not murder the weak, the defenseless."

An insult that would have normally started a fire under her, only sent chills down her spine. He really was out of her league!

"But," He paused, watching the struggle in her eyes, "I will not let you go either."

Her heart sank, another tear slipping down her face; choking back a sob of terror. If he wasn't going to kill her... And he wasn't going to let her go... What exactly was he going to do with her?