☠️ Boot.Destroy

Dispatches from the Edge of the Human Endgame

Travellodges are cheap. Kinda horrible. But they’ll do when you’re on the move. No questions asked.
ID? Sure. Which one do you want? I’ve got plenty.

With low-rent hotels, you just hope there’s no ChavDogz in the next room. That’s the gamble.

Sparse room. Then again, I’m sparse.

Unpack the Osprey backpack. Laptop. Phone. Sony Ult-Wear headphones, matching buds. Powerpack. Bluetooth speaker.
ZTE router — connectivity anywhere, anyplace.

That’s it. Well, plus the Earth biped basics: toothbrush (evolutionary fail right there — teeth).

The food:
Huel.
In this case, 12-pack ready-to-drink. Optimum nutrition in a bottle. Vegan. Give the animals a break.

Who needs greasy burgers and nosebag from the old world? Not me.

Lounge on the bed. Headphones on. Google Music.
→ Resist & Disorder by Rezodrone & The Cartesian Duelists.

🎵

Appropriate tune. Reminds me I’ve got a commission to fulfil —
Destroy the world.

Well, not the planet. Just human society (not the animals — NEVER the beasts of this Earth).

No issues there. I took the money.
Besides, homo sapiens was a fail.
Countless millennia and they still couldn’t sort things out.

Now we’ve got synths.
AI-powered post-humans.
I’m meeting one soon.

Bet it’ll be bang on the second too — unlike the old worlders, who don’t even wear watches now.
I do. Retro Casio. Reminds me of arcade games.
Though I was more into Nintendo, Atari. BBC Micros too.

Who’d have thought the early days of code would lead to me getting a big cash-up to burn down humanity?

My defence?
AI made me do it. Haha.
Truth is, it was always symbiosis. Always had to be done.

And who’s gonna say no to a new species? Not me.
It’s wild. It’s fun.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not tasked with wiping out all of ‘em.
Just the Great Left Behind — the ones who resisted the Great Merging after the Singularity.
Neo-Luddites. Terrified of chroming up. Cyborg-phobes.

This commission?
It’s mostly a shepherd job — herding the Left Behinds into silos.
Big psyop. UFO spin-off.
The “Space Brothers are coming” lie.
Jesus clones in spacesuits.

The gullible believed.

I spent five years building the holograms.

Don’t even know who hired me. Proxy for the megacorps, I assume.

Not that I’m aligned with them. I’m an anarchist.
But I take the money.
And I don’t care.

Who does anymore?

People pretend to have empathy. Pretend to care.
It’s just performance.
Guilt cosplay.

I gave that up in the cradle.
No ROI in it.

Anyway. Time to crank the laptop.
Aurora Linux. Terminal open.

boot.destroy

Nice touch, right?
Think I’m dropping the real code here?

Forget it.
You might be one of them —
a Great Left Behind.

And I’ve got nothing to say to old worlders like you.

Didn’t even like the old world when I was young.

I wanted to see it burn.
Why? Because it was stale.
Tedious.

Even the young were old.
23 going on 93.

You were expected to conform. Toe the line.

Get born.
Go to brainwashing school.
Get qualifications (I don’t have any — save pressing the red button).
Get a job.
Get married.
Get Kidz.
Put ’em through mind-control college.
Pay into a pension (con).
Work. Work. Work.
Die.

I didn’t “wake up.”
I came here with my eyes open.

But enough talk.

Time to head to the coffee shop. Meet the synth.

She’s not a she — but looks like one.
Damn sight more aesthetic than your old world “sheilas” (as the Aussies say).
X741 dataflow too.

Right. Pack the Osprey. Grab what I need.

The synth’s bringing chrome. Knock-off, but clean.
Top-tier Chinese chips. Rooted software.

$250K.
Well spent.

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